Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A+ | 2166 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Float Like a Butterfly…
By Couch Baron | Season 4 | Episode 7 | Aired on 2010.09.05
...and we cut to a diner, which makes me hope that either Don isn't a total creature of habit or that this is Doris's night off. Don asks what the most exciting thing about a suitcase is, and Peggy suggests it's the promise of travel, pointing out the cheapo painting of the Acropolis on the wall, prompting Don to tell her he'd like to go to Greece. "I hear all the good cooks stayed there." Heh. Peggy says she'd love to go on a plane for the first time, and Don recalls when he flew to Korea and they told the soldiers how many thousands of feet up in the air they were, freaking out some kid who was "even more of a yokel" than Don and prompting this hick-y exclamation: "Man wasn't meant to fly!" That kid's going to be fun to have around at a moon landing party. Peggy laughs, and then whispers, "Cooper has no testicles?" It does take a few times for it to really sink in. Don tells her his Uncle Mac said he always had a suitcase packed, because a man had to be ready to go at all times. He then pauses, and wonders, "Jesus, maybe it's a metaphor." HA! I'll go one better and suggest it'd be hilarious if Don's precious hobo code came out of something entirely unintended, like, maybe Mac was extolling the virtues of stool softener or some homemade version of Cialis. Peggy, however, opines that there's something to the idea before sighing that she can't tell the difference anymore between a good idea and a bad one, and Don admits that they can be very close, but you know the best one when you see it. "You keep banging your head against the wall, then it happens." I'm hoping that's a metaphor too, because Don does enough damage to his brain via his executive membership in the Canadian Club. Whatever Don's description is, Peggy likes it, and confesses that she knows what she's supposed to want in life, but she can't make it fit for her: "It just never feels right. Or as important as anything in that office." Another example of the Dr. Faye-expressed seasonal theme of people's true desires starting to overcome the expectations that other people and society put on them. Peggy then offers that she didn't know that Don was in Korea, and asks if he killed anyone; Don tells her no, but he did see some people die in front of him. He doesn't tell her that one of the people was named Don Draper, but that's a conversation that can wait until she makes partner. Peggy tells Don that her dad died of a heart attack right in front of her when she was twelve, and it was pretty violent. "The TV was on -- that's why I hate sports." I'm glad she didn't say she hates TV, because I want to believe we have a few things in common. Peggy goes on that no one was around, and I could see where this type of experience might, you know, shake your faith a little. Not disproving my point, Don admits that he witnessed his father's death as well, telling her how he died at the hands...well, feet, of a horse. Peggy laughs for a moment, assuming he's kidding, but when she clues in that he's not, asks about his mother, and Don replies that he never knew her. He doesn't bring up the world's oldest profession or how he got his original given name, but again, Peggy's only twenty-six and there's plenty of time for that. Looking back up at the painting, Peggy wonders why there's a dog in the Parthenon, and Don's realization that it's a roach is enough to send them, er, scurrying out of there.