Hey, before we kick off this week, we’re taking a new approach to the round table – we’re going to split up the various storylines among the writers now. That lets each of us focus on something specific about the episode, and it means you don’t have to read jokes about Betty Draper being the world’s worst mother three times every week. (She wasn’t even on the show this week, and we’re still tempted to mention it.) Obviously, if we ever have a real disagreement, we’ll hash it out here. But for the most part, you’ll be enjoying storyline-specific analysis from each of us.
MYNDI
I really don’t think there’s any question that Peggy had the line of the episode. When her new friend, Joyce, a photographer for Life magazine who was telegraphed to be a lesbian from her first moment onscreen, tries to kiss her at a party, Joan rebuffs her, saying she has a boyfriend. “He doesn’t own your vagina!” Joyce shouts over the party noise. “No, but he’s renting it,” Peggy says, without missing a beat. It’s the kind of line that reminds us that by 1965 things have changed vastly from just five years earlier, when we first met young Peggy Olson.