My favourite episode of AMC’s other Emmy-scooper Breaking Bad this season was Fly, a claustrophobic, emotionally fraught hour in which the show’s two leads were locked together in a room and did essentially nothing but talk. They talked, moreover, about things that had long gone unspoken between them, which is what led me to the comparison with this episode. Like Fly, Suitcase is essentially a two-hander, albeit with substantial turns from supporting players. Like Fly, it used its narrow scope to allow a long-established character relationship to develop very quickly over a very short space of time. And, like Fly, it’s absolutely brilliant.
The conceit here is that Don, attempting to distract himself from the knowledge that Anna has likely died in California, hounds Peggy to produce a winning idea for luggage brand Samsonite, dismissing every pitch she and the boys make – “I’m glad this is an environment where you feel free to fail” – and eventually pressuring her into staying late to brainstorm despite the fact it’s her birthday.
What’s interesting is that this is about more than Don merely wanting to avoid reality, or about him not wanting to be alone. He had the opportunity to go out with Roger and the entirety of the office staff to watch the Ali v. Liston fight, but he chose not to (much to Roger’s chagrin, who’s forced to spend the evening with teetotallers Freddy and his friend from Palm’s). He wanted specifically to be with Peggy at this moment, for reasons which don’t quite become clear until much later.
Before any of this begins, though, we get two scenes which lay the groundwork for Peggy’s state of mind this episode. First up, Duck calls her with a business proposition, which swiftly descends into desperate begging to see her once she surmises he’s drunk, he’s been fired from Gray, and he’s probably not to be taken very seriously.
Having hung up on one uncomfortable conversation, Peggy later encounters a heavily pregnant Trudy in the ladies’ room. This is, I think, the first time the two have shared actual screen time together, and it’s a painful, understated moment as they make small talk about the pregnancy, and Trudy’s father’s penchant for blood sports (heh). After wishing her a happy birthday Trudy assures Peggy that “twenty six is still very young”, which I think was genuinely well intentioned but came out terribly cutting, especially in contrast to Megan’s impressed remark just prior that Peggy’s “doing all right”.
Pete’s face upon seeing Peggy and Trudy walk out together, incidentally, was a classic. I hate to use anything resembling a smiley, but his expression really is best summed up thusly: O_O
So Peggy stays, and stays, and stays some more, and really doesn’t put up as much resistance to Don’s coercion as she might have, only telling Mark that she was “drawn into [Don’s] web” and she’ll be late for her birthday dinner with him at the Four Seasons. Unfortunately, Mark’s chosen tonight to throw her a surprise party, and invite her mother, sister, and roommate along, and by the time he lets Peggy in on this she’s way too deep into Don’s web to untangle herself. She tells him she’s not coming, they fight, and he breaks up with her over the phone in front of her entire family.
I can’t say I’m heartbroken about this – what does it say about Peggy and Mark’s relationship that he doesn’t appear to know how she feels about her family by this point?
Now that she, like Don, “has nowhere else to go”, Peggy’s all set to throw herself back into the work with renewed zeal, but ends up instead having an all out, no-holds-barred blowout with Don, long-stewing tensions finally surfacing for both of them. Don tells her she should stop counting her ideas, that this is not a byline system and her salary is her reward; Peggy calls him on his drunkenness and ingratitude and the Glo Coat business, and it’s generally an epic, raw, bloody battle that ends with Peggy bursting into tears and excusing herself to sob in the bathroom. Come on Peggy, there’s a place to do that, like your apartment. How quickly Joan’s teachings are forgotten.
Miraculously considering how ugly he's been to her ("get over birthdays", really?), Don manages to lure Peggy back into his office and get her smiling with one of Roger’s memoir recordings, which reveals amongst other things that Miss Blankenship was quite the vixen in her day, that Roger's naming his book 'Sterling's Gold' (hee hee hee), and that Cooper had his balls unnecessarily removed by a surgeon named Dr Lyle Evans. And the mystery is solved!
Don’s practically rolling on the floor at this and even Peggy can’t suppress a snigger. This is the point at which they begin to open up to each other – there’s nothing like a good ball gag at the expense of a colleague to break the ice – and after a brief skirmish with a mouse, they head out for a somewhat more modest birthday dinner at the lowest of lower-rent diners. Very Dick Whitman, rather than Don Draper, it seems to me.
Peggy admits to Don that although she knows what she’s supposed to want in life, the kind of things Trudy Campbell values, it “just never feels right, or as important as anything in that office.” This was definitely a moment where the supposedly outmoded attitudes Mad Men highlights still feel very current – for a woman to admit she has little interest in settling down at all and would rather focus on her career than her biological clock is still taboo in a lot of circles, though eyebrows wouldn’t start to raise until said woman was in her thirties or so nowadays.
Despite Peggy’s pointing out to Don that they don’t have personal conversations, she seemed to get very comfortable very quickly with revealing things to him, and so when they end up in a darkened bar the conversation turns first to her insecurities about dating (Don reassures her she’s both attractive and “cute as hell”) and later to that ultimate elephant in the room where Peggy’s concerned, her baby.
It’s nice to see Don really, truly listening to Peggy for once, and reacting to what she’s saying. His wrecked expression after her shaky “Playgrounds” was really sort of devastating – nobody knows better than him the difficulty of trying not to think about traumatic past events.
Back at the office, Peggy half-carries Don into the gents’ just in time for him to vomit up what must be a metric ton of alcohol. His stomach and liver must be pure steel by now, so lord only knows how much he's put away to get to this point. Just when Peggy’s thinking her night can’t get any better, Duck shows up, tries and fails to take a dump on Don’s floor, calls Peggy a whore and ends up in a vaguely embarrassing drunken tussle with Don. Aw, Don. At least he tried to defend Peggy’s honour, even if he was too far gone to actually get his fist anywhere near Duck’s face. Peggy, who honestly deserves some sort of medal between this and her dealing with Stan last week, manages to get rid of Duck, and returns to Don’s office in time for him to pass out in her lap. He’s sweating, his shirt is vomit-stained and I can’t even imagine what he smells like at this point, yet she stays. And that, ladies, is the power of Don Draper.
Don wakes up at some point in the night, Peggy having fallen asleep, and sees a ghostly, smiling Anna in the office holding a Samsonite case. In the morning, he finally takes the plunge and phones Stephanie, who confirms that Anna’s gone and that no arrangements needs to be made – she’s donated her body to science. Don’s already starting to lose it during this conversation, but holds it together until he looks up to see Peggy, who’s been listening in silence. He stares at her for a moment, quivers, and breaks down completely into sobs. It’s really, really devastating. Sterling work from Jon Hamm, though that almost goes without saying at this point. Moss isn’t exactly slacking, either. Can two actors submit the same episode for Emmy consideration, though?
Don tells Peggy that the only person who really knew him has died, and Peggy rubs his back saying “that’s not true.” It is, for now, but after this monumental turning point in their relationship, I can absolutely see her becoming his new Anna in a few years’ time. I think the moment will come for him to tell her everything, and when it does, she’ll still love him.
Later that morning Peggy returns to Don’s office, to find him looking unreasonably clean and bright-eyed considering the night he had. People like him sicken me. He shows her a concept for Samsonite based on Clay’s surprise win against Liston, before taking her hand and giving her a look that both acknowledges what passed between them and says “thank you” in the most overt way Don can.
Other thoughts:
- Is it me, or is Joey is a little bit...off? He’s gone from reasonably affable to flat out rude and creepy in the space of seven episodes – the “jam a pen into your neck” line was just baffling, as was his response to Joan.
- Megan seems to be getting more substantial scenes now, to the point where I wonder if they’re leading up to something bigger with her. Another secretarial fling for someone? I’m hoping not, she seems too savvy for that.
- Speaking of which, the “You never say thank you”, “That’s what the money is for” exchange had to be an intentional call back to poor Allison.
- I loved Peggy eyeballing the urinals while Don vomited – for anyone who’s ever done this for a SO or male friend (yep, I’ve been there), that is such a true moment. Ew.
- Interesting that Don doesn’t know Pete was the father of Peggy’s baby, I’ve often wondered about that.
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