Did anyone understand the symbolism with the prison guard?  He tells Don that he is going to be a better man now that he has a son and his wife came out of the difficult birth OK.  But when they pass in the hallway a day or two later, the prison guard gets a look of guilt on his face.  Why did they introduce this character?  I thought at first it was to give Don the incentive to be a better man as well.  And it seemed that Don was trying to fall into his father/husband role better.  But it appears the prison guard broke his promise to Don.  Is this to show Don that no matter what, he can't be a better man?

The whole episode was so dreamlike that I reached the conclusion that only the beginning of the conversation with the guard literally happened.  The rest takes place in the fog of Don's imagination.  Early in the conversation, Don makes the odd comment that time has stopped.  It seems to me the guard represented Don's conscience talking to him about being a shitty father.  He talks about wanting to be better, then takes a vow to do so, and then makes Don say out loud that he heard him.  Then he gently touches Don's face.  This is not the interaction of two fathers-to -be in a waiting room.  Later, when the guard only gives Don a glance, it's because they didn't do all that sharing in real life.

That makes sense, Jack. I felt that the guard didn't remember Don... like the conversation was far more important to Don than to the guard. But your explanation makes sense, too.

I also felt like the guard was a mirror of Don. Not Don now, but Don when Sally was born. As if Don made the promise to be a better man when Sally was born, but he didn't end up keeping that promise. And that here was another chance. To me, it was like the guard was the "ghost of Don's past".

jack and adgal - I agree

When Don entered the waiting room, the guards back was to him.  He was watching TV.   Later he was shown sleeping on the couch with his back to Don .       The Fog refers not only to Betty in her drug like Fog, but to Don and the Fog of his conscience, which he is finding more difficult to ignore.

Both of these people are searching for something to end the isolation they are both feeling.  Now seems to be the time when both of them have come to some conclusion that they are no longer willing to continue life as it has been. They are both lonely and confused.  I know it isn't how tend we perceive Don , but with the exception of Anna, he is totally emotionally disconnected.  I  look forward  to see the changes begin.

That works for me, too, Adgal.  I missed something the guard said at the end when he touched Don's face.  Was it something about being wise or a wise man?

I could be wrong - but didn't the guard and his wife *not* have a baby with them as they were leaving the hospital?  I'm thinking...the baby died, and all that talk of being better....either didn't matter, or it was too little, too late.  Any words between the two men would have been painful - what was to be said?  Just a thought...

Dennis' wife gave birth just a short time before Betty.  Don met Dennis and his wife while taking flowers to Betty shortly after their baby was born.   I would think that Dennis was taking his wife to see the baby in the nursery. It seemed to soon for her and the baby to leave the hospital.   In 1963 mothers were usually kept in the hospital 3 to 5 days.

I don't get the impression that the waiting room scene is  about Dennis or his baby,  but implies more about Dons state of mind.  His acknowledgement that he need to change, wants to change.  He is agonizing over where he is in his life and knows that he needs to begin to let go of the past that haunts him and live in the present that he has made for himself.  It is not all about Don/Dick anymore, it is about the Draper family.

jackspratt - The words Dennis said to Don (or Don thought Dennis said to him) were "you are an honest man, and I am an expert".

@ I remember it well:  Thank you.  I just couldn't make it out.  I really hope that Don engages with the children.  they look so disappointed when they don't get what they need from him.

@joy:  I originally thought that, too.  But they didn't have a suitcase with them and there was no medical staff, so I don't think the wife was being discharged yet.  Maybe they were going to the nursery?

I love thinking through all of this stuff.  Lot's of fun.

The prison guard touching Don's face was kind of too far-fetched to me. A man touching a strange male's face like that in the early '60's? I would have thought that only a father figure would do that to a son or nephew.

I notice that Don lets his guard down around (sorry if I'm politically incorrect, but can't think of any other way of putting it) people in blue-collar professions. He just seems more at ease with them. Even in social situations he seems somehow more stiff and on guard around his professional peers (even neighbors).

The prison guard bit is really only fully explained in the last shot of the episode, when Betty gets up to respond to the baby's cries. On her way down the hall, she stops, and sighs. The ambient light deliberately paints her with a series of stripes, as if she's wearing a prison uniform (like the pinstripes of the yankee uniforms ) or behind prison bars. She continues down the hall, trapped in her own house.

Ahhhhh... I have been trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean!  Did not notice the shadows, good catch c.!!

Ah, nice breakdown lounge members.  I watched this episode a while ago, so I don't quite remember... but now that scene makes a lot more sense.

I never imagined that Don may have dreamt the whole thing. 

My interpretation of the the guard's downcast eyes when he encountered Don in the hallway was nothing more than being shy or ashamed to have shown such a moment of weakness to another man.

agree with randedge's correct for the time period reply.