Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 631 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Mystery Date
By Couch Baron | Season 5 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2012.04.08
Dawn, sitting on Peggy's couch, is calling to her unseen host that her other family members are just her nineteen-year-old brother and mother "who says she's thirty-nine." Peggy appears with two beers and slurs, "Like Jack Benny," and then sits down and asks what Dawn was saying about Don earlier, adding, "You can talk to me." I swear, if Elisabeth Moss for some reason ever wants to have her least attractive scene handy, she should carry this one around with her. It's like the makeup people wanted to make someone else look as bad as Don -- hair is a mess, skin is grey and the makeup and camera angle make her face look like it something out of Guernica. Peggy, who looks like she might have the spins, goes on that she was Don's secretary, and she wasn't even looking to be a copywriter, but she was discovered. "Like Esther Blodgett." Hee. Dawn chuckles at that, and then Peggy puts down the beer and admits she's lit up pretty good, to which Dawn amusedly agrees, "Y'all drink a lot." Peggy laughs, and the way she can't keep her head still is such a great drunken touch by Elisabeth Moss, but surprisingly, she still remembers what happened a couple minutes ago, and asks Dawn again what she was going to say about Don. Dawn asks her not to tell him about her sleeping there, and Peggy says she won't -- they have to stick together. Echoing what she once told Abe, she goes on that she knows they're not in the same situation, but she was the only one in her own position (i.e., a female copywriter) for a long time, and she knows it's hard. Dawn appreciates her saying that, and then Peggy seriously asks if Dawn wants to be a copywriter. Dawn, however, says she likes her job, and Peggy muses that being a copywriter is tough, especially for a woman. She asks Dawn if she thinks she acts like a man, and Dawn, treading lightly as she has since Peggy stumbled into the office, guesses that she has to, a little. Peggy nods and says she tries, but she's not sure she has it in her. Oh, Peggy. Have you really forgotten Bobbie Barrett's words of advice? Peggy adds that she's not sure if she even wants to, although picking up the beer again and getting even drunker is probably more like the dudes in the office than the women.
[Note: What Peggy fails to notice (and I don't think it's just because she's hammered) is that there is a distinct amount of white privilege that separates what it means to be a white woman and a black woman in the workplace -- especially in '66. Even bragging that her boyfriend is covering the riots in front of Dawn, just after she clearly demonstrated that she has to live in fear of them, didn't tip her off. Peggy is starting to get so good at playing the men's games, that she's even starting to be blind to the other social injustices of the world. Hopefully Joyce will knock some sense into her, if Dawn doesn't. -- Rachel.]