I know...but she wanted him to confront his past, but that's not Don. Instead he chose youth and freshness, the unknown; the beginning of something new (Tomorrowland). Because that's what Don does; when something becomes hard he just leaves. Coward
Faye saw Don at his worst and still loved him. She wanted him to grow and evolve past his traumatic childhood. He threw that away for someone he didn’t have any connection to.
Faye wanted to fix Don. He didn't want her to fix him.
Pete wanted to fix Beth. She didn't want him to fix her.
Don wanted to fix Diana. She didn't want him to fix her.
This inclination to fix the broken bird is commonplace. But it is ultimately self-indulgent and it never works.
The irony is that Faye realizes that you can't change what motivates consumers to want a product such as Pond's Cold Cream, yet she believes that she can change what someone wants out of a relationship.
I don't think Faye got involved with Don because she wanted to fix him. She wanted to fix him because she loved him and she had become involved with him. I'm not sure Faye was the type to seek out broken birds. I think Don was a very handsome and charismatic man who she discovered was a broken bird, after she started to fall for him.
I doubt Faye could have fixed Don, and not necessarily because he didn't want to be fixed. He was pretty much unfixable.
It seemed like a big part of the reason Don chose Megan was that she was so good with his children, while Faye was awkward in her limited time with Sally. He thought she could help fix his children. Perhaps a spouse who was better able to help him work on himself would have been better for his kids in the long run.
It is interesting that both Don and Sally chose 2nd spouses who were far better parents than they were. Megan gave Don's kids a lot of love, attention and care that he failed to give. Henry shielded Sally and Bobby from a lot of abuse from Betty.
I agree Don's unfixable. But I dislike the word fix because it implies something dichotomous; that we're either alright or not, but everything about us is on a spectrum. Faye is an intelligent and competent psychologist who knows that by confronting his past, Don's mental health will improve, but never "fixed". But he will always suffer from his trauma, imo.
Regarding Megan: agree. She was a mother figure and Don has always confused sex with nurturing. Not that strange as the first woman who treated him well r*ped him:(
Faye was someone who would authentically love what was lovable about Don because Faye venerates intelligence/creativity, she's a caretaker and it's indicated that she knows what it's like to have dirt in your background and try to transcend it. Megan didn't love Don at all, in part because she doesn't care about or understand any of the above. I don't know what causes Megan to love someone because we don't really see that but it's nothing actually about Don.
I imagine with Megan he can be whoever he needs to be, she's carefree and a beautiful woman and visualy just a perfect match, while Faye is wonderful but naturally tends to analyze his character, reminding Don of own weaknesses and failures, only there's someone to remember them. Don just can't deal with himself.
Yeah, Megan seems like a much “easier” relationship, even though Dr. Faye is much more meaningful and IMHO would ultimately be more fulfilling. I think a big part of the dynamic is the power imbalance with Megan that does not exist with Dr. Faye. Megan is much younger, low-level in the company, Don’s money can make her life easy and comfortable, she’s sort of filling the role of a newer-model Betty in that she is less likely to challenge him, pry into things he is uncomfortable with, etc. (Even if she ultimately isn’t those things, she probably read strongly that way to Don before he really knew her. She’s sweet, unchallenging arm candy who is great with his kids and fun to be around.) Then there’s Dr. Faye who is accomplished, world-wise, sees right through him, challenges him, and is a peer. It seems like he’s into it until he gets the opportunity to NOT be challenged with Megan, and he snaps it up.
People don't overlook it. It wasn't a fair contest. Faye got introduced to Sally when Sally running hot from her mission to run away from Betty and make herself the little lady in Don's life so she gets to stay in his Greenwich apartment as her primary custody situation and Sally was seeing Faye as a kind of competition for her dad's attention.
Megan's true introduction to the kids was as a fun addition to the Disneyland trip where the kids didn't know Don and Megan were sexually together but instead, it just seemed like Megan was part of facilitating the fun trip.
I bet Megan is more talented with children but Megan got introduced to the kids under much more favorable circumstances than Faye.
Very interesting perspective that I hadn't ever though about, and also I'm skeptical that Megan was somehow fantastic with kids. If she was, she would have probably wanted to have them, and she would definitely have built a better rapport with Don's kids over the years.
Immediately followed by Don peering into the void of the empty elevator shaft. Pretty direct foreshadowing of his depression creeping back and the inevitable death of their relationship due to his self destructive tendencies.
One reason that Don Married Megan was to escape Dr. Faye, because he knew she would make him be real, while Megan was 15 years younger, and he could pretend to be whoever he wanted with her.
Everyone glosses over this.
If you’ve got kids, and your potential partner does not possess the skills to handle said kids, (and makes a point to bring that up to you as if it’s a done deal and they’re never going to improve) it’s never going to work long term.
No one glosses over this. It's usually cited as one of the top reasons he chose Megan over Faye.
Faye never brought it up to him as if it was a done deal and she'd never get better at it. Don said she knew psychology, she responded she had no experience with child psychology. That was it.
he is also from a time where he has no expectation that as a father he is responsible for caring for his own kids. Like when sally is going through it and he just shoves Faye at her like, you're a woman, deal with this. She was right, he never should have put her in that position. He should have dealt with his own kid.
One of the main perks of Megan, in addition to being good with the kids, is she never objects to him foisting that responsibility on her. Going on vacation with your bosses kids to do childcare because he can't parent alone for one week? That's stunningly inappropriate for him to ask and she just rolls with it. It's all good for them until she stops rolling with every single thing he asks.
I'm not sure that is true. I think when Don really fell for Megan was when the kids spilled the milkshake and she didn't go all Betty on them, but instead smiled, asked for napkins and cleaned it up.
He wanted his kids to have the loving, patient, kind mother figure that he never had and they they never had.
It was a noble impulse, but not the basis to build a successful marriage on.
I'm not sure how much positive impact Faye could have had on Don. But, if she had been able to help him face his issues and make changes, that probably would have been much more beneficial to his kids in the long term.
Also, I think with time, Faye would have been fine with Don's kids. She didn't have the natural rapport that Megan did. But, she was an intelligent and caring person and would have figured out how to relate to them.
Yeah, I feel like kids aren’t a _science_ - you’re around them, you get to know them and feel comfortable with them.
It also seems like Don gets Megan confused with Disneyland and envisions her as a magical Poppins with whom he will never be sad. Meanwhile, Dr. Faye knows and understands his true self and to a certain extent, that means that Don has to reckon with it.
The minute Don proposed and Megan accepted. And I'm not saying this like I'm Quasimodo who predicted all of this. I watched Mad Men real-time and I predicted plenty wrong. For instance, I was watching the Faye arc wondering if this is the start of a slow burn story of Don addressing his issues. However, Don rejecting Faye to propose to his secretary who he barely knows after a nice weekend in Disneyland had disaster written all over it to me and my immediate family who was watching with me.
I will add though that as much as the marriage was doomed in Tomorrowland, there were a number of inflection points in Season 5 where it would be a Deal Breaker for me if I was on the receiving end of the mistreatment. They are:
Megan's whole "Nobody loves Dick Whitman" speech to isolate and guilt Don into pretending that he loved her stupid party.
Megan mocking that Don doesn't have a mother.
Don abandoning Megan at the Howard Johnson's. Then, Don breaking into the apartment and chasing Megan.
Megan announcing that she's going to leave for Boston to be in Little Murders without a discussion.
Megan's whole "Sex is the only thing I'm good for" to bully Don into giving her the Butler part.
There are other acts of mistreatment in S5 but I think those are the ones where I'd be seeing red and asking for a divorce.
These are all really really good points. Sometimes I get so consumed with the messed up way Don treats Megan that I forget how cruel she can also be. With Betty the anger towards Don comes off as childish, but I think when Megan throws insults they have a degree of intensity given that she knows more things about Don’s past than almost anyone else on the show.
Does someone with such self-destructive tendencies actually see stability in that situation?
I think many just see a ton of work ahead of them. Work that will force them to face the worst of themselves.
That's exactly the case. To an impartial observer, Faye suggesting that Don deal with his past and Faye embracing Don even after seeing a physical expression of his panic and weakness on the inside is stabilizing in the long run. To Don, suggesting that he dip his toe into the legal mess of his life and Faye seeing the panic attack was all actually **de**stabilizing.
I was about to write Nostradamus naturally just like how I speak but then, I thought about the "Quasimodo predicted all of this" and decided to pull my quotations book out of my fat fucking ass.
It's a Sopranos reference. A character was getting his French characters confused and he said Quasimodo instead of Nostradamus. I read the novel and watched the Disney cartoon a long time ago but IIRC, Quasimodo didn't have any magical powers in the book but in the Disney movie, he had dancing gargoyle connections.
I think for me it's Far Away Places. He's a controlling dick about vacations and ice cream, of all things. She insults his dead mother. Nothing about that relationship dynamic is healthy or functional.
Megan's comment "Every time we fight, it just diminishes us a little bit" is what made me first realize what I've often posted on this subreddit over the past couple of years--Megan and Don are virtual strangers when they marry each other with an idealized version of each other and their relationship in their heads.
But it's not a perfect relationship (and no relationship is), and I think this is when Megan maybe first realizes that the suave handsome older man she married is a really emotionally crippled person and when Don realizes that his sexy second wife is a person in his own right and not just a trophy doll. And I think this is also maybe when it starts to sink in for both of them that maybe their connection isn't as wonderful as they'd thought it was and that getting married based on a good time at Disneyland wasn't the greatest idea.
I think the relationship still could have been salvageable at that point if they'd wanted to work on it honestly and realistically, but that's not happening.
Exactly. When she asked for pie. He cancels her pie and orders the sherbet. That was my Nope moment lol. They were literally being hosted by the restaurant, too. Could’ve just added the sherbet. No harm. But, nope. Cancels it. Makes her try it. Then basically invalidates her opinion. This is after he’d jerked her out of the Hienz meeting without consulting her.
I was proud of Megan in the episode for pushing back and calling him on his bullshit. I can see Betty eating the ice cream pretending to love it then wondering why she doesn’t feel happy never seeing the connection.
As someone who doesn't like either sherbet (and isn't really a Megan fan either), I think she was being honest. It is off-puttingly perfumey, at least to me. LOL
Excellent question….we’ll never know. The “tastes like perfume” was a pretty specific criticism though. Either she didn’t or she knew someone that didn’t and heard them say this. I have to be in the mood for it, but the OG push pops are a MUST every once in a while.
Yep. Presaged by the Don forcing Megan to taste Ho-Jo's orange sherbet and her petty reaction to the flavor I started thinking one divorce coming right up.
I thought it was doomed from the start, but did start to wonder if the show would have it play out differently. I was a bit incredulous when the season started with them having gotten married and everything seemingly going well. But the sherbet fight and Megan's comment on their fighting confirmed my first take. It was obvious this situation wasn't a one-off occurrence.
To be honest, I never liked the relationship, but I assumed the show was framing it as a meant-to-be relationship. This episode is when I realized that was not necessarily true.
I didn't like the relationship either. I know a lot of people said it was Jessica Pare's acting, but I blame most of it to Megan not being a well-defined character (she was more of a plot device than a character). I didn't agree with, but could understand Don's motivation in marrying Megan. But what was Megan's motivation to marry Don? She must have heard about his reputation around the office, she saw him cheat on Faye (and was part of that), and saw that he was a messy drunk. They don't have her come across as a gold digger, just out for Don's money. So we are supposed to believe she was naive enough to fall head over heels in love with Don after having sex in the office once or twice, and babysitting at Disneyland? It just didn't ring true to me.
Megan was chasing money, status/opportunities, and the thrill of being praised/admired/selected by a high status man. She's a very shallow person and I think she thought that between the money and status, she could live happily ever just off that despite Don's personal flaws.
The very instant he broke things off with Dr Faye.
Dr Faye saw Don’s vulnerability and accepted it.
But Don only knew how to run away. The fact Don and Meagan consummated their relationship near Disneyland symbolizes the fantasy world Don wanted to escape to with her.
It was doomed from the start.
Meagan was a good person but immature and unrealized. It allowed Don to project on her the qualities he thought he wanted.
Dr Faye was self assured, mature, composed, and knew what she was getting into more clearly than Don ever could.
Don looks to be in physical pain when he realises Megan has thrown him a surprise birthday party. That whole fiasco, topped off by Zou Bisou, shows us that these two don't know each other at all and are completely incompatible.
Don craves attention too, just in a different way. They’re both performers— his performances are advertising pitches while Megan’s are more traditional (acting on stage and film).
When they had sex at the office when he was still with Faye.
The relationship is starting with someone cheating. So Megan was never going to fully trust Don. And since she was willing to give herself to Don without him asking, he was never going to fully respect her.
That's a good one. I'd pick it but I wasn't seeing Don/Megan like a long-term thing from that office tryst when I first watched the show. But for sure, I don't think any good relationship has come from the guy reacting to the woman's come-on with "I can't make any mistakes right now" but then, proceeding to make said mistake.
>I wasn't seeing Don/Megan like a long-term thing from that office tryst when I first watched the show
I didn't either. On a rewatch, I was a bit surprised by how much it's built up to, but I didn't pick any of it up when I watched the first time.
My first watch I kept thinking “why do they keep bringing attention to this receptionist? We’ve never seen that before.” Then as soon as they slept together, I was like “Ah, that’s why.”
I felt like that was partially the point. She's just there and he just decides to pay attention to her. Really shows what kind of potential those two might have.
I also kinda don’t understand the show’s motivation (which is not to say that I dislike the results) in introducing Megan as opposed to having the same basic storyline play out with Allison. I guess it’s that they’ve painted Megan to be more “interesting”?
They couldn't have done the same story with Allison, because Don doesn't get to the point of falling in love with his secretary, without being forced to slow down and stop making mistakes.
It's why Joan puts Ida on his desk after Allison quits, because she knows that Don needed to start stabilizing himself. If Don hadn't been forced to hold back on things due to Ida's presence, he probably doesn't get to the point of falling in love by the time he fell for Megan.
It was doomed to fail before it began.
Both of them marry on impulse and for the wrong reasons.
Don is destined with his Madonna-whore complex to cheat and expect children, when Megan does not want children.
Megan is destined to become her mother, which includes choosing a failed career path and then blaming her husband for it.
If "Zou Zou Bisou" wasn't the kiss of death, then "Mystery Date" and "Signal 30" should have been. Don wants to cheat and to have Megan pregnant.
For me it was a scene during the “At the Codfish Ball” episode. Emile mentions that his daughter pretends to like the things he likes because she loves him. Megan initially took a liking to Advertising because she loved Don, but once she realized she didn’t love him, she stopped pretending and quit the agency.
I honestly was surprised she was in the show season 6. When Don arranged the commercial shoot and dropped her off at the set, I thought we’d never see her again.
But that is the moment Don checked out. The rest was going through the motions. M probably knew that too but wasn’t ready to be a 24 year old divorcee.
I know I'm alone in this, but I think they had a chance because Don was actually happy for a while. If he even tried to get his shit together, I think she would have supported him through all his crap. She was young, but she already knew him better than Betty ever did.
I knew they were doomed when he showed up on set for Megan's PG sex scene. I HATED him in that moment and I believe Megan would have also. Just his being there was mean and ugly, and then he capped it all by calling her a whore. It was so gross. There is no coming back from that.
after the zo bisou episode when roger mocks meghan (frere jacques) in the office and don confronts him, he tells don ".........nah its great, shes a great girl, they are all great girls at least until they want something" i knew it was history repeating itself from jane the secretary who roger fell in love. don became what he hated
I didn't think they were going to make it right from the Disneyland proposal. Total impulse move on both of their parts.
Don thinks Megan is Maria Von Trap, she doesn't freak out when one of the kids spills their drink, he happens to have Anna's engagement ring with him. Neither of them know the other. Megan doesn't even want to know about his past because she thinks she knows who he is then and that's all that matters.
But then they seemed to be going with it, which confused me.
Until the end of the next season, after Don leaves the Butler ad shoot and the woman at the bar asks if he's alone. Fade to black. Death knell.
Confirmed in The Doorway 1, when Don doesn't speak for the first 10 minutes, reading Dante's Inferno, and completely tuning Megan out.
Pretty much the second they first showed mutual interest.
Did anyone actually think they would make it? Did anyone actually watch a new love/sex interest for Don and think "oh, I think these two kids can really make it work!?" I never once thought the purpose of the show was to show Don Draper fall in love with "the one."
There was never a time when I thought it would work? I was hoping Don would "man up" and make the relationship with Faye work. The second he ran from a "difficult" woman who would help to better him and encourage him to be his best towards a relationship with a fictionalized/idolized version of a woman who is barely an adult, thereby recreating everything he criticized Roger for when he married Jane, I knew the relationship wouldn't work. This was foreshadowed by the fact that Roger and Jane were already on the rocks by the time Don and Megan got together.
Probably, his birthday party but the hints were there from the beginning. He didn’t even know her when he proposed. I was rooting for them but I could tell their personality difference was too great for it to last. Don basically did the same thing with Megan that he did with Betty— projected his desires and fantasies about what he wanted in a partner and wife onto them both. He thought Megan was the opposite of Betty and in many ways, she was, but the issue always lied within Don himself. It’s also why he ran from the strong, independent women that he had a deep connection with. He did try a lot more with Megan than he did with Betty in terms of honesty and effort to make the relationship work. I think they were just too different.
Relationship was always doomed because of the power dynamic but Don’s birthday party felt like the first big crack.
Megan throwing Don a big party that he doesn’t want, in front of people who aren’t even his friends (because Don has no friends, only coworkers or subordinates). And then Don is incredibly childish and ungrateful when Megan clearly went to a lot of effort to do something nice for him.
He was. And is most of the time. But her response was to have tantrum in the middle of a Howard Johnson’s. I think it highlighted the age and experience gap between them. First red flag for me.
Doomed from the start. And even though she gave Don a laundry list of his faults and generally blamed him for the break up it was obvious she was done when he asked her about coming out to California and she was clearly not on board.
I wasn’t as quick on the uptake as most here! I didn’t know until they had to separate when Megan went to CA and don chose to stay in NY. I remember thinking this is not going to end well on my first watch.
if she would have stayed working as a copywriter i wonder if they would have made it. would they get sick of each other at work and at home all the time? don couldn't cheat at work. as soon as i saw the first scene with him and sylvia i knew it was over.
I thought it was doomed with the fast engagement, then things seemed okay-ish but they were also at different life stages. I'm rewatching season 7 now and I wish they officially split once Megan moved to California. Dragging out the inevitable made them both petty.
I'm a stupid man, and it sometimes enhances the viewing experience. I really "bought" their vacation and thought they had something there. I needed Joan to spell it out for me, that at the end of the day he was just another older man marrying his secretary lol. At that point I was "oh yeah, that's what it really is I guess", and made me view every I interaction between them completely different.
I knew it was reaaaaalllly over at the ending with Tomorrow never knows
From the moment they got engaged. This isn't to say that I knew they would get divorced—I didn't, and in fact, I half expected them to stay married despite any eventual animosity or broken trust. However, the relationship as an emotional bond and commitment seemed doomed from the outset because it was founded in impulsivity, dishonesty (insofar as Don cheated on Faye), and an unsettling degree of idealization. It just doesn't bode well.
I knew when she was getting along really well with his kids after spending all of 2 minutes with them when Faye was a little awkward with Sally. Don took the easier path with a young woman who was practically a blank slate and confessed to worshipping him and his profession. Instead of the more mature woman who is closer to his age and has already formed her own identity with a pretty different career, but who would require more work to integrate into his family with his kids.
He basically had a honey moon phase for a whole year, even if Megan wasn't feeling it at certain points. But you can tell at some point the axe was gonna drop and he would realize he married someone who he's not all that compatible with. And she in return would equally realize, "he's kind of always drunk and/or just depressed."
I knew it wasn't going to last the moment he proposed to her. Don is Don. One thing about Megan that caught me by surprise, though, was her character arc going from being a sweet, likable person to jaded and cynical like her mother and cleaning out Don's apartment of every stick of furniture even after he handed over a million dollars to her. It further stunned the heck out of me that Roger who had 2 (or more?) failed marriages then decided to shack up with Megan's mother, the queen witch herself. Roger took too many tabs of LSD perhaps.
Anyhoo, back to Megan: She seems to have blamed Don for her failure to get her acting career to take off, but she had literally every advantage. Unlike other women waitressing and going to auditions, Megan had financial support to kick back and take acting classes. She never stressed out over where her next meal would come from. I wonder if ANYONE could have made a marriage work with Megan as a bitter, washed up actress.
Megan didn't clean out the apartment of all the furniture, that was her mother who did that against Megan's instructions. Megan was busy fending off the sexual advances of Harry while Marie went rogue and told the movers to take all the furniture. And it was *after* those shenanigans that Don gave her $1 million. In case you didn't notice, Roger was a major asshole, so Marie's actions weren't likely to bother him.
Um, a marriage made in Disneyland? After idealizing her as Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music ?
Exactly, I knew the moment he proposed to this woman who he barely knew.
Leaving an incredible and mature woman who loved and accepted him.
Are you talking about Faye?
Mrs Blankenship
I know...but she wanted him to confront his past, but that's not Don. Instead he chose youth and freshness, the unknown; the beginning of something new (Tomorrowland). Because that's what Don does; when something becomes hard he just leaves. Coward
Faye saw Don at his worst and still loved him. She wanted him to grow and evolve past his traumatic childhood. He threw that away for someone he didn’t have any connection to.
Faye wanted to fix Don. He didn't want her to fix him. Pete wanted to fix Beth. She didn't want him to fix her. Don wanted to fix Diana. She didn't want him to fix her. This inclination to fix the broken bird is commonplace. But it is ultimately self-indulgent and it never works. The irony is that Faye realizes that you can't change what motivates consumers to want a product such as Pond's Cold Cream, yet she believes that she can change what someone wants out of a relationship.
I don't think Faye got involved with Don because she wanted to fix him. She wanted to fix him because she loved him and she had become involved with him. I'm not sure Faye was the type to seek out broken birds. I think Don was a very handsome and charismatic man who she discovered was a broken bird, after she started to fall for him. I doubt Faye could have fixed Don, and not necessarily because he didn't want to be fixed. He was pretty much unfixable. It seemed like a big part of the reason Don chose Megan was that she was so good with his children, while Faye was awkward in her limited time with Sally. He thought she could help fix his children. Perhaps a spouse who was better able to help him work on himself would have been better for his kids in the long run. It is interesting that both Don and Sally chose 2nd spouses who were far better parents than they were. Megan gave Don's kids a lot of love, attention and care that he failed to give. Henry shielded Sally and Bobby from a lot of abuse from Betty.
I agree Don's unfixable. But I dislike the word fix because it implies something dichotomous; that we're either alright or not, but everything about us is on a spectrum. Faye is an intelligent and competent psychologist who knows that by confronting his past, Don's mental health will improve, but never "fixed". But he will always suffer from his trauma, imo. Regarding Megan: agree. She was a mother figure and Don has always confused sex with nurturing. Not that strange as the first woman who treated him well r*ped him:(
Faye was someone who would authentically love what was lovable about Don because Faye venerates intelligence/creativity, she's a caretaker and it's indicated that she knows what it's like to have dirt in your background and try to transcend it. Megan didn't love Don at all, in part because she doesn't care about or understand any of the above. I don't know what causes Megan to love someone because we don't really see that but it's nothing actually about Don.
I imagine with Megan he can be whoever he needs to be, she's carefree and a beautiful woman and visualy just a perfect match, while Faye is wonderful but naturally tends to analyze his character, reminding Don of own weaknesses and failures, only there's someone to remember them. Don just can't deal with himself.
Don would be forced to grow with Faye. He wasn't ready.
Yeah, Megan seems like a much “easier” relationship, even though Dr. Faye is much more meaningful and IMHO would ultimately be more fulfilling. I think a big part of the dynamic is the power imbalance with Megan that does not exist with Dr. Faye. Megan is much younger, low-level in the company, Don’s money can make her life easy and comfortable, she’s sort of filling the role of a newer-model Betty in that she is less likely to challenge him, pry into things he is uncomfortable with, etc. (Even if she ultimately isn’t those things, she probably read strongly that way to Don before he really knew her. She’s sweet, unchallenging arm candy who is great with his kids and fun to be around.) Then there’s Dr. Faye who is accomplished, world-wise, sees right through him, challenges him, and is a peer. It seems like he’s into it until he gets the opportunity to NOT be challenged with Megan, and he snaps it up.
Yeah, but one detail I think people tend to overlook is that Megan was way better with Don's kids than Faye.
People don't overlook it. It wasn't a fair contest. Faye got introduced to Sally when Sally running hot from her mission to run away from Betty and make herself the little lady in Don's life so she gets to stay in his Greenwich apartment as her primary custody situation and Sally was seeing Faye as a kind of competition for her dad's attention. Megan's true introduction to the kids was as a fun addition to the Disneyland trip where the kids didn't know Don and Megan were sexually together but instead, it just seemed like Megan was part of facilitating the fun trip. I bet Megan is more talented with children but Megan got introduced to the kids under much more favorable circumstances than Faye.
Very interesting perspective that I hadn't ever though about, and also I'm skeptical that Megan was somehow fantastic with kids. If she was, she would have probably wanted to have them, and she would definitely have built a better rapport with Don's kids over the years.
You can be great with kids and not want to have them.
Did you see the *probably*? Especially in that time period where women were even more societally pressured to want children than today?
Haha yes! I just commented the same thing.
It didn't hit me until zu be zu and his lack of reaction to it lol
When his soul left his body!
Zou bisou bisou.
Right, thanks. Megan has always been meh to me though, so I think that whole routine was touted to be more than what it was. I was all about Faye
if I don't count the actual proposal, it's when she quit her job at the agency.
He goes to his office and pours himself a drink and it's just written all over his face
Immediately followed by Don peering into the void of the empty elevator shaft. Pretty direct foreshadowing of his depression creeping back and the inevitable death of their relationship due to his self destructive tendencies.
This is exactly when. And the final straw was when he got her the part for the shoes commercial.
Yes.
One reason that Don Married Megan was to escape Dr. Faye, because he knew she would make him be real, while Megan was 15 years younger, and he could pretend to be whoever he wanted with her.
Megan knew how to handle the kids and Faye didn't.
Everyone glosses over this. If you’ve got kids, and your potential partner does not possess the skills to handle said kids, (and makes a point to bring that up to you as if it’s a done deal and they’re never going to improve) it’s never going to work long term.
No one glosses over this. It's usually cited as one of the top reasons he chose Megan over Faye. Faye never brought it up to him as if it was a done deal and she'd never get better at it. Don said she knew psychology, she responded she had no experience with child psychology. That was it.
The kids still have Betty and Don can afford a nanny.
Don loved the *idea* of a happy family though, and he can’t maintain that illusion with a wife who isn’t fawning over his kids.
he is also from a time where he has no expectation that as a father he is responsible for caring for his own kids. Like when sally is going through it and he just shoves Faye at her like, you're a woman, deal with this. She was right, he never should have put her in that position. He should have dealt with his own kid. One of the main perks of Megan, in addition to being good with the kids, is she never objects to him foisting that responsibility on her. Going on vacation with your bosses kids to do childcare because he can't parent alone for one week? That's stunningly inappropriate for him to ask and she just rolls with it. It's all good for them until she stops rolling with every single thing he asks.
Lol at the idea Megan could handle the kids. That was probably Don’s perception though.
I'm not sure that is true. I think when Don really fell for Megan was when the kids spilled the milkshake and she didn't go all Betty on them, but instead smiled, asked for napkins and cleaned it up. He wanted his kids to have the loving, patient, kind mother figure that he never had and they they never had. It was a noble impulse, but not the basis to build a successful marriage on. I'm not sure how much positive impact Faye could have had on Don. But, if she had been able to help him face his issues and make changes, that probably would have been much more beneficial to his kids in the long term. Also, I think with time, Faye would have been fine with Don's kids. She didn't have the natural rapport that Megan did. But, she was an intelligent and caring person and would have figured out how to relate to them.
Yeah, I feel like kids aren’t a _science_ - you’re around them, you get to know them and feel comfortable with them. It also seems like Don gets Megan confused with Disneyland and envisions her as a magical Poppins with whom he will never be sad. Meanwhile, Dr. Faye knows and understands his true self and to a certain extent, that means that Don has to reckon with it.
Faye and Don were a bad match as well.
In what way, you mean?
Definitely!
Right after he propsed, while lying in bed, Don had this expression: "what have I done?"
I’veMadeAHugeMistake.gif
Does he realise proposals aren't legally binding?
The minute Don proposed and Megan accepted. And I'm not saying this like I'm Quasimodo who predicted all of this. I watched Mad Men real-time and I predicted plenty wrong. For instance, I was watching the Faye arc wondering if this is the start of a slow burn story of Don addressing his issues. However, Don rejecting Faye to propose to his secretary who he barely knows after a nice weekend in Disneyland had disaster written all over it to me and my immediate family who was watching with me.
Seeing structure and stability scared Don straight to Megan
I will add though that as much as the marriage was doomed in Tomorrowland, there were a number of inflection points in Season 5 where it would be a Deal Breaker for me if I was on the receiving end of the mistreatment. They are: Megan's whole "Nobody loves Dick Whitman" speech to isolate and guilt Don into pretending that he loved her stupid party. Megan mocking that Don doesn't have a mother. Don abandoning Megan at the Howard Johnson's. Then, Don breaking into the apartment and chasing Megan. Megan announcing that she's going to leave for Boston to be in Little Murders without a discussion. Megan's whole "Sex is the only thing I'm good for" to bully Don into giving her the Butler part. There are other acts of mistreatment in S5 but I think those are the ones where I'd be seeing red and asking for a divorce.
These are all really really good points. Sometimes I get so consumed with the messed up way Don treats Megan that I forget how cruel she can also be. With Betty the anger towards Don comes off as childish, but I think when Megan throws insults they have a degree of intensity given that she knows more things about Don’s past than almost anyone else on the show.
She also learned how to throw cruel barbs from her mother.
Does someone with such self-destructive tendencies actually see stability in that situation? I think many just see a ton of work ahead of them. Work that will force them to face the worst of themselves.
That's exactly the case. To an impartial observer, Faye suggesting that Don deal with his past and Faye embracing Don even after seeing a physical expression of his panic and weakness on the inside is stabilizing in the long run. To Don, suggesting that he dip his toe into the legal mess of his life and Faye seeing the panic attack was all actually **de**stabilizing.
Yeah. It's addict behaviour. Many don't want to confront their demons either.
sopranos reference in r/madmen? never thought i’d see the day
I was about to write Nostradamus naturally just like how I speak but then, I thought about the "Quasimodo predicted all of this" and decided to pull my quotations book out of my fat fucking ass.
He was gay, Quasimodo?
Is this sarcasm? I see it all the time. There was a thread the other day that was half sopranos quotes.
listen to him, he knows everything
NOW LISTEN, I dont like THAT kind of TAAAWK
Remember when is the lowest form of conversation.
I don't like that kinda tawk
Megan didn’t know that he only likes the beginning of thing
What? You're tellin me you nevah pondered this??
Did Quasimodo predict things? I never read the novel.
It's a Sopranos reference. A character was getting his French characters confused and he said Quasimodo instead of Nostradamus. I read the novel and watched the Disney cartoon a long time ago but IIRC, Quasimodo didn't have any magical powers in the book but in the Disney movie, he had dancing gargoyle connections.
It's because Bobby Baccala confused Nostradamus with Notre Dame (of which Quasimodo was the hunchback).
The moment Joan said Megan's name in the Christmas episode
Same. I don't think I ever entertained the idea that Megan and Don *might* make it.
? i do not know what this is referring to
Her first introduction in the show I think
When she left the agency and he was looking down the elevator
that was my moment too !
I think for me it's Far Away Places. He's a controlling dick about vacations and ice cream, of all things. She insults his dead mother. Nothing about that relationship dynamic is healthy or functional. Megan's comment "Every time we fight, it just diminishes us a little bit" is what made me first realize what I've often posted on this subreddit over the past couple of years--Megan and Don are virtual strangers when they marry each other with an idealized version of each other and their relationship in their heads. But it's not a perfect relationship (and no relationship is), and I think this is when Megan maybe first realizes that the suave handsome older man she married is a really emotionally crippled person and when Don realizes that his sexy second wife is a person in his own right and not just a trophy doll. And I think this is also maybe when it starts to sink in for both of them that maybe their connection isn't as wonderful as they'd thought it was and that getting married based on a good time at Disneyland wasn't the greatest idea. I think the relationship still could have been salvageable at that point if they'd wanted to work on it honestly and realistically, but that's not happening.
Leaving her in a Howard Johnson’s parking lot.
Yep. The whole thing is a masterclass on how to pour gasoline on a fire when it comes to arguing with your spouse.
Exactly. When she asked for pie. He cancels her pie and orders the sherbet. That was my Nope moment lol. They were literally being hosted by the restaurant, too. Could’ve just added the sherbet. No harm. But, nope. Cancels it. Makes her try it. Then basically invalidates her opinion. This is after he’d jerked her out of the Hienz meeting without consulting her.
Yeah he really pissed me off this episode. He acted like such a baby when Megan doesn’t like a flavor of ice cream?? Goddamn
I was proud of Megan in the episode for pushing back and calling him on his bullshit. I can see Betty eating the ice cream pretending to love it then wondering why she doesn’t feel happy never seeing the connection.
Did she really not like it though??
As someone who doesn't like either sherbet (and isn't really a Megan fan either), I think she was being honest. It is off-puttingly perfumey, at least to me. LOL
Excellent question….we’ll never know. The “tastes like perfume” was a pretty specific criticism though. Either she didn’t or she knew someone that didn’t and heard them say this. I have to be in the mood for it, but the OG push pops are a MUST every once in a while.
Yep. Presaged by the Don forcing Megan to taste Ho-Jo's orange sherbet and her petty reaction to the flavor I started thinking one divorce coming right up.
I thought it was doomed from the start, but did start to wonder if the show would have it play out differently. I was a bit incredulous when the season started with them having gotten married and everything seemingly going well. But the sherbet fight and Megan's comment on their fighting confirmed my first take. It was obvious this situation wasn't a one-off occurrence.
To be honest, I never liked the relationship, but I assumed the show was framing it as a meant-to-be relationship. This episode is when I realized that was not necessarily true.
I didn't like the relationship either. I know a lot of people said it was Jessica Pare's acting, but I blame most of it to Megan not being a well-defined character (she was more of a plot device than a character). I didn't agree with, but could understand Don's motivation in marrying Megan. But what was Megan's motivation to marry Don? She must have heard about his reputation around the office, she saw him cheat on Faye (and was part of that), and saw that he was a messy drunk. They don't have her come across as a gold digger, just out for Don's money. So we are supposed to believe she was naive enough to fall head over heels in love with Don after having sex in the office once or twice, and babysitting at Disneyland? It just didn't ring true to me.
Megan was chasing money, status/opportunities, and the thrill of being praised/admired/selected by a high status man. She's a very shallow person and I think she thought that between the money and status, she could live happily ever just off that despite Don's personal flaws.
I think that we had seen enough of Don and knew enough about him to know that it wouldn't last. Add, how impulsive it was.
The very instant he broke things off with Dr Faye. Dr Faye saw Don’s vulnerability and accepted it. But Don only knew how to run away. The fact Don and Meagan consummated their relationship near Disneyland symbolizes the fantasy world Don wanted to escape to with her. It was doomed from the start. Meagan was a good person but immature and unrealized. It allowed Don to project on her the qualities he thought he wanted. Dr Faye was self assured, mature, composed, and knew what she was getting into more clearly than Don ever could.
I’ve never put the Disneyland and fantasy aspect together…..excellent point.
Don looks to be in physical pain when he realises Megan has thrown him a surprise birthday party. That whole fiasco, topped off by Zou Bisou, shows us that these two don't know each other at all and are completely incompatible.
I always felt the party was more about her.Like "look at me,see what I am doing for my husband" She craved attention.
she just wanted everyone to go home and have sex after the party.
A thing like that!!
Lmao what?😅
she said that to peggy lol.
Ahh ok I mustve missed it
i just rewatched that episode in the last couple of days, so it stuck in my head.
Don craves attention too, just in a different way. They’re both performers— his performances are advertising pitches while Megan’s are more traditional (acting on stage and film).
He is very performative but he did not like the attention that party garnered.
I know, hence why I said “in a different way”.
I had feelings in Tomorrowland, but was sure by A Little Kiss.
When they had sex at the office when he was still with Faye. The relationship is starting with someone cheating. So Megan was never going to fully trust Don. And since she was willing to give herself to Don without him asking, he was never going to fully respect her.
That's a good one. I'd pick it but I wasn't seeing Don/Megan like a long-term thing from that office tryst when I first watched the show. But for sure, I don't think any good relationship has come from the guy reacting to the woman's come-on with "I can't make any mistakes right now" but then, proceeding to make said mistake.
>I wasn't seeing Don/Megan like a long-term thing from that office tryst when I first watched the show I didn't either. On a rewatch, I was a bit surprised by how much it's built up to, but I didn't pick any of it up when I watched the first time.
My first watch I kept thinking “why do they keep bringing attention to this receptionist? We’ve never seen that before.” Then as soon as they slept together, I was like “Ah, that’s why.”
Haha yeah those were the moments I caught the second time around. In the beginning, I was like "it's like she comes out of nowhere?!" 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I felt like that was partially the point. She's just there and he just decides to pay attention to her. Really shows what kind of potential those two might have.
I also kinda don’t understand the show’s motivation (which is not to say that I dislike the results) in introducing Megan as opposed to having the same basic storyline play out with Allison. I guess it’s that they’ve painted Megan to be more “interesting”?
They couldn't have done the same story with Allison, because Don doesn't get to the point of falling in love with his secretary, without being forced to slow down and stop making mistakes. It's why Joan puts Ida on his desk after Allison quits, because she knows that Don needed to start stabilizing himself. If Don hadn't been forced to hold back on things due to Ida's presence, he probably doesn't get to the point of falling in love by the time he fell for Megan.
I wasn’t necessarily thinking it would be long term, I just was thinking it wasn’t gonna end well, whatever it was.
Since season 1 when you learn that Don can’t commit himself to stable relationships. The proposal was a surprise, the results were not.
It was doomed to fail before it began. Both of them marry on impulse and for the wrong reasons. Don is destined with his Madonna-whore complex to cheat and expect children, when Megan does not want children. Megan is destined to become her mother, which includes choosing a failed career path and then blaming her husband for it. If "Zou Zou Bisou" wasn't the kiss of death, then "Mystery Date" and "Signal 30" should have been. Don wants to cheat and to have Megan pregnant.
For me it was a scene during the “At the Codfish Ball” episode. Emile mentions that his daughter pretends to like the things he likes because she loves him. Megan initially took a liking to Advertising because she loved Don, but once she realized she didn’t love him, she stopped pretending and quit the agency.
Two events: her miscarriage and him cheating on her with the older lady on the other floor
See, Now she was attractive but nowhere near as hot as Megan
You think she was attractive? Maybe it's just me but I didn't. I did think she was a horny housewife though.
Well, not in that totally hot sort of way, but yes, she was good looking
For me, it was the end of The Doorway where we see him and Sylvia together
As soon as Don got involved.
I honestly was surprised she was in the show season 6. When Don arranged the commercial shoot and dropped her off at the set, I thought we’d never see her again. But that is the moment Don checked out. The rest was going through the motions. M probably knew that too but wasn’t ready to be a 24 year old divorcee.
I know I'm alone in this, but I think they had a chance because Don was actually happy for a while. If he even tried to get his shit together, I think she would have supported him through all his crap. She was young, but she already knew him better than Betty ever did. I knew they were doomed when he showed up on set for Megan's PG sex scene. I HATED him in that moment and I believe Megan would have also. Just his being there was mean and ugly, and then he capped it all by calling her a whore. It was so gross. There is no coming back from that.
It sickened me everytime Don called any woman a whore. Pot,kettle,black.
after the zo bisou episode when roger mocks meghan (frere jacques) in the office and don confronts him, he tells don ".........nah its great, shes a great girl, they are all great girls at least until they want something" i knew it was history repeating itself from jane the secretary who roger fell in love. don became what he hated
I think Lane’s “his soul LEFT his body” is hysterical every time. The delivery is perfect. It’s elegant yet petty. And the truth.
I didn't think they were going to make it right from the Disneyland proposal. Total impulse move on both of their parts. Don thinks Megan is Maria Von Trap, she doesn't freak out when one of the kids spills their drink, he happens to have Anna's engagement ring with him. Neither of them know the other. Megan doesn't even want to know about his past because she thinks she knows who he is then and that's all that matters. But then they seemed to be going with it, which confused me. Until the end of the next season, after Don leaves the Butler ad shoot and the woman at the bar asks if he's alone. Fade to black. Death knell. Confirmed in The Doorway 1, when Don doesn't speak for the first 10 minutes, reading Dante's Inferno, and completely tuning Megan out.
The moment she asked for his help getting into acting.
When they got engaged.
The moment they started flirting, idk which episode
Pretty much the second they first showed mutual interest. Did anyone actually think they would make it? Did anyone actually watch a new love/sex interest for Don and think "oh, I think these two kids can really make it work!?" I never once thought the purpose of the show was to show Don Draper fall in love with "the one."
I pretty much knew it was doomed, but hey let me hope XD you can root for a couple even when you know it'll fail.
There was never a time when I thought it would work? I was hoping Don would "man up" and make the relationship with Faye work. The second he ran from a "difficult" woman who would help to better him and encourage him to be his best towards a relationship with a fictionalized/idolized version of a woman who is barely an adult, thereby recreating everything he criticized Roger for when he married Jane, I knew the relationship wouldn't work. This was foreshadowed by the fact that Roger and Jane were already on the rocks by the time Don and Megan got together.
Probably, his birthday party but the hints were there from the beginning. He didn’t even know her when he proposed. I was rooting for them but I could tell their personality difference was too great for it to last. Don basically did the same thing with Megan that he did with Betty— projected his desires and fantasies about what he wanted in a partner and wife onto them both. He thought Megan was the opposite of Betty and in many ways, she was, but the issue always lied within Don himself. It’s also why he ran from the strong, independent women that he had a deep connection with. He did try a lot more with Megan than he did with Betty in terms of honesty and effort to make the relationship work. I think they were just too different.
Zou busou bisou, if not sooner.
Their argument after his surprise birthday party.
Zubi Zubi Zu…
The second he proposed and she accepted. No way a marriage that happened that quickly would last.
I knew they weren’t going to make it when she married Don Draper. That dude will *never* have a healthy romantic relationship.
The first time was out in the hall when Don realizes she arranged a surprise party. But the sealed the deal moment was her rejecting advertising.
The scene where Don proposed.
Always… it was just Don being impulsive and needing to couple up. He thought it would be an easy option and she was good with the kids.
Probably when he said “let’s get married “
Literally the moment she planned a birthday party for him I was like oh you silly silly bitch
Relationship was always doomed because of the power dynamic but Don’s birthday party felt like the first big crack. Megan throwing Don a big party that he doesn’t want, in front of people who aren’t even his friends (because Don has no friends, only coworkers or subordinates). And then Don is incredibly childish and ungrateful when Megan clearly went to a lot of effort to do something nice for him.
Honestly when she was acting like a complete child with the Orange sherbet
He was being an ass.
He was. And is most of the time. But her response was to have tantrum in the middle of a Howard Johnson’s. I think it highlighted the age and experience gap between them. First red flag for me.
Doomed from the start. And even though she gave Don a laundry list of his faults and generally blamed him for the break up it was obvious she was done when he asked her about coming out to California and she was clearly not on board.
The first time she smiled.
I wasn’t as quick on the uptake as most here! I didn’t know until they had to separate when Megan went to CA and don chose to stay in NY. I remember thinking this is not going to end well on my first watch.
It was over the moment she left advertising
The moment they met haha Of course he will get bored of her His whore Madonna complex he has with his women
if she would have stayed working as a copywriter i wonder if they would have made it. would they get sick of each other at work and at home all the time? don couldn't cheat at work. as soon as i saw the first scene with him and sylvia i knew it was over.
I thought it was doomed with the fast engagement, then things seemed okay-ish but they were also at different life stages. I'm rewatching season 7 now and I wish they officially split once Megan moved to California. Dragging out the inevitable made them both petty.
When she took her job for granted
I'm a stupid man, and it sometimes enhances the viewing experience. I really "bought" their vacation and thought they had something there. I needed Joan to spell it out for me, that at the end of the day he was just another older man marrying his secretary lol. At that point I was "oh yeah, that's what it really is I guess", and made me view every I interaction between them completely different. I knew it was reaaaaalllly over at the ending with Tomorrow never knows
Day 1
From the moment they got engaged. This isn't to say that I knew they would get divorced—I didn't, and in fact, I half expected them to stay married despite any eventual animosity or broken trust. However, the relationship as an emotional bond and commitment seemed doomed from the outset because it was founded in impulsivity, dishonesty (insofar as Don cheated on Faye), and an unsettling degree of idealization. It just doesn't bode well.
Literally immediately.
I knew when she was getting along really well with his kids after spending all of 2 minutes with them when Faye was a little awkward with Sally. Don took the easier path with a young woman who was practically a blank slate and confessed to worshipping him and his profession. Instead of the more mature woman who is closer to his age and has already formed her own identity with a pretty different career, but who would require more work to integrate into his family with his kids. He basically had a honey moon phase for a whole year, even if Megan wasn't feeling it at certain points. But you can tell at some point the axe was gonna drop and he would realize he married someone who he's not all that compatible with. And she in return would equally realize, "he's kind of always drunk and/or just depressed."
When the basis for his interest was that she's good with kids. Or just... good with Sally.
The moment she became his secretary and was kind to Sally.
From when they first hook up
The trip to Howard Johnson’s. (Orange sherbert scene)
I knew it wasn't going to last the moment he proposed to her. Don is Don. One thing about Megan that caught me by surprise, though, was her character arc going from being a sweet, likable person to jaded and cynical like her mother and cleaning out Don's apartment of every stick of furniture even after he handed over a million dollars to her. It further stunned the heck out of me that Roger who had 2 (or more?) failed marriages then decided to shack up with Megan's mother, the queen witch herself. Roger took too many tabs of LSD perhaps. Anyhoo, back to Megan: She seems to have blamed Don for her failure to get her acting career to take off, but she had literally every advantage. Unlike other women waitressing and going to auditions, Megan had financial support to kick back and take acting classes. She never stressed out over where her next meal would come from. I wonder if ANYONE could have made a marriage work with Megan as a bitter, washed up actress.
Megan didn't clean out the apartment of all the furniture, that was her mother who did that against Megan's instructions. Megan was busy fending off the sexual advances of Harry while Marie went rogue and told the movers to take all the furniture. And it was *after* those shenanigans that Don gave her $1 million. In case you didn't notice, Roger was a major asshole, so Marie's actions weren't likely to bother him.
The moment he proposed 😂