Peggy hasn't been taken all that seriously, and she has been viewed as just another secretary, full of "earnestness". However, that changes here as she offers a tag line ("basket full of kisses" referring to a waste basket with lipstick imprints on napkins during a "brainstorming" session) that impresses a couple of the ad execs (one played by Bill Murray's brother, Joel). She is told by Joan that there's a chance for her to do more than file documents in a cabinet and be at Don's every beck and call. Now Peggy has a chance to pitch! This is a big deal, and Joan seems a bit jealous (it is hard for her to contain it but Joan does everything, even mad, sexy; she's all presentation and quite a performance artist Joan is). We learn that Joan is having an affair with Sterling (no surprise, right? Another affair
), and the two meet at a hotel to assume their tawdry sexcapades. Don and his team is saddled with a job to encourage tourism in Israel, with a campaign that attracts Americans and others to the Jewish clients' country. Don tries to maintain a healthy marriage with his dutiful gorgeous (and vacuous) wife, an affair with a beatnik artist who seems less and less his type the longer they continue, and a relationship with a client he is thoroughly attracted to and affectionate for (he even asks for a lunch to scan her brain for ideas in his Jewish clients campaign because she is a Jew). The episode ends with Don hanging out at a beatnik club, sticking out like a sore thumb, encouraged to attend by his lover. Don and his client, Rachel (Maggie Siff), just have fireworks and can't seem to escape each other
their chemistry and attraction is hard to deny. Because Don has committed to the "American Dream" of the domestic ideal with the pretty wife, two kids, and perfectly kept house, he is walking the razor's edge with carrying on one affair while on the verge of starting another one. That balancing act will not exactly be easy! As seen here, the men in the office don't exactly have a flattering view of the women that work there, considering them the perfect guinea pigs who "speak moron." Watching behind the glass of the "test room" are the execs, gleefully commenting on the ladies as if an audience watching clowns, mockingly amused. Pop culture is all the rage in this series as Betty speaks to Don about how old Joan Crawford looks with her "caterpillar eyebrows". In a previous episode, some of the boys in the officer were listening to a Bob Newhart standup record. It is a fun little aside the show has in its favor considering when Mad Men takes place.
Review of Babylon
