The image of Don's bare feet that opened the episode and then recurred, splashing on dirty concrete after he made his flight down the fire escape. His weighted words to Sal: limit your exposure. Pete and Ken's completely opposite, completely in character reactions to learning that they are co-heads of accounts. So many smart, meaningful moments. The season, I'd say, is off to a hell of a start.
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Yippee - it's back!

I think the message went over Sal's head - instead of taking it in thoughtfully, he seemed more relieved than anything that Don did not ask him a pointed question.

For some reason, Ken's character serves to underscore what others perceive as inadequacies in themselves - remember the way he and Paul wound up at odds when Paul found out of Ken's success as a writer?

I think Sal was both relieved that it wasn’t a direct question and he got that Don wasn’t going to rat him out because he’s in the same glasshouse – although in 1963 Sal is far more screwed than Don for his indiscretions/infidelity.

Also the final scene in bed with Betty and his daughter about “the night I was born..” I think Don came home late not because “he was working late” but because he was out philandering. There was a knowing look from Betty.

Boy is Betty a trooper for hanging in there…

And wow!  Where are these stewardesses when I fly?

Retired would be my guess...

Haha... clever.

Wonder if bare feet = cold feet.  Maybe it was my imagination but Don did seem a little conflicted with the flight attendant - "Not yet" when she bid him undress.

Cold feet when contemplating perhaps his own aging, perhaps the coming new arrival,  as he preps the warm milk for pregnant Betty.  In that very first moment, before we knew it was for her, I thought perhaps he was warming it for the new baby.  Maybe he feels a bit ambivalent about fathering another child and so imagines the circumstances of his own birth.  It seems logical the two would be connected in his mind, especially if he doing the kind of inventory many of us do on birthdays after a certain point in our lives.

I think fatherhood is one of the only things in life that Don is not ambivalent about. Every scene we see him in with his children, he is on their side.

James, I don't Don was out philandering the night Sally was born. I think his cheating may well have started later. Remember how in love he was in the flashback scene with Anna, telling her he'd found the girl of his dreams? Maybe I'm giving Don too much credit, but I think the story of Sally's birth had him all choked up.

I even think there's a bit of parallel to last season when Sally was watching Don shave after he'd tied Bobbi Barret to the bed and walked out on her. Now here's Sally wearing the wings of Don's latest conquest. Don keeps failing to live up to his own ideals, and to the picture his children have of him.

Another thing: last season, I think Don was initially trying to stay faithful to Betty. He rejected Jane's advances, and said to Bobbi Barrett that first night in the car "I don't want to do this." I sensed ambivalence in his initial interactions with the flight attendant in the season 3 premiere, and relief when the fire alarm went off: more than one kind of escape, barefoot, down that rickety flight of stairs.
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Iris, yeah, I think Don was a bit choked up to think about how well off his kids are compared to his own ignoble, embarassing birth.
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People living deeply have no fear of death. - Anais Nin
coilovers caviar

I think Don was choked up, too.

I laughed out loud when they were on the plane and Sal said "I've never seen a stewardess so game." Then Don, incredulous, said, "You haven't?"

There were so many layers to that line. I'm sure every stewardess Don sees is that game. And yet Sal hadn't seen one like that, probably because he hadn't flown with Don before. But also probably because, on some level, the stewardesses know Sal is gay.

With Don's warning of "limit your exposure" and all the other stuff that happened in this episode, I think we'll be hearing more about Sal's sexuality and it may even affect work. The closet door is slowly opening.

Just trying out a new avatar. You can make one for yourself here:

http://www.amctv.com/orig ...

adgal (and Don),
How did you get your avatar to upload? I made one from that website earlier, but it's 200x200 and won't upload here. I can't quite figure out how to pare it down.

I adjusted the size of mine in Photoshop. Do you have any sort of photo editing software?

Same here.  I was able to do it by putzing around with the image in Preview.  But thanks to adgal for the idea!

What gives?  I thought this was a place where I could WATCH episodes?  Maybe I've missed something.  The Madmen site that routed me to install a "Graboid" what a sinister name -  didn't work and was riddled with dumb adds.

I am currently in Anqing, China so I rely on websites for my viewing.  BTW, I worked in an office similar to Sterling, Cooper.  The name of mine was Cragin, Lang, Free, industrial real estate brokers.  I cringe when I think of what was expected of women then.

I can't believe Don was doing that to Betty again.

And what of Peggy and Pete and where they left it off... I can't wait.

I think Sal got Don's point and was amazed at how skilled Don was at addressing the issue of Sal's homosexuality

I'm wondering what the stereotypical response of the time would be .... a boss almost catching an employee in the act or close to it?

I think Don is in some ways a fabricated character maybe the most fabricated part of the whole show.

Niceguy:

If  the stereotypical boss needed a reason to get rid of Sal, he would have strongly  suggested that  Sal immediately resign for personal reasons.  Otherwise he would have pretended he saw nothing... there is of course nothing stereotypical about Don.

Yeah, any one else at the agency would have tried to use that information against Sal somehow.  A good and bad thing about Don is he can definitely keep a secret and doesn't really care what skeletons you have in your closet.

I was definitely peeved about Don letting the stewardess have her way with him though.

You are right belvedere, he was not the aggressor in this situation.  I was not so much peeved as disappointed.

However - we really saw nothing more than that final moment where she sort  of pushed him from a sitting position on the end of the bed and flung herself on him.  That was a real Don Draper move if I ever saw one, but he was SAVED BY THE FIRE BELL!

If the scene  had continued as it was going, Don was simply watching her undress, maybe buying time while he found a graceful way of getting out of this awkward situation, or was he just making the moment last?

Her next move, if she intended to take continue her seduction to the next step,  was to remove herself from that girdle and the panties she wore under it.  We called them the iron maiden.    Believe me that is no graceful maneuver. It takes a lot of wiggling and  I can imagine Don just watching.  I would love to have seen it that

I was also impressed by the contrast between the opening scene - Don making milk for his pregnant wife and his effort to help her relax,  and the closing scene, the guilty Don explaining the wings to Sally - what a difference a day can make.

Maybe he needs to go back to California for another talk with the other Mrs Draper and another baptism  in the Pacific....

The most graceful way out of that situation would have been not to invite her into his room.  I highly doubt he was just waiting for the right moment to say no.  I was both disappointed and peeved...

But yes - the contrast between the opening and closing scene was great.  And I lost all faith in a reformed Don!  What happened to Betty's resolve?  She seemed ready to have an abortion and leave Don for good almost to the very end of the last season.  Really... if the first west-coast rebirth didn't do it... I thought he was going to go off with the jet-setters that time.  So the fact he decided he really needed his current family in his life made me think he changed his ways... tsk tsk.

I was also both disappointed and peeved, belvedere, but probably for different reasons.
While not condoning in any way, I think a faithful, familyman Don makes for a much less interesting Don.
Here he is, on a business trip in a strange town, with a stewardess who doesn't know his "true" name, and is intrigued that he's some kind of mysterious G-Man. Top that off with the awful, "It's my birthday," line, and what else could it possibly lead to? There was virtually no chance it could get back to Betty, unlike the Bobbi disaster.

Don struck me as being more an ambivalent observer than an active participant throughout that whole sequence.  More like "Let's see what happens here" than "I'm going get me some of that!".  He was far more aggressive with Midge, Rachel and Bobbie.  On the other hand, each of those women provoked an emotional response of some type within him while the flight attendant was, for lack of better words, merely available, so perhaps, as a result, the whole seduction was a little half-hearted.  He didn't have to work at it - it was being brought to him on a platter.

That's true.  She did just fall into his lap, and, if I remember correctly, he even protested a little.  Sigh.  All the same, I'm reacting to the way I would feel if my partner did that to me or vice versa.