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Mad Men, Season 6, Episode 12 (Patreon)

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2024-05-15 02:03:07
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The Quality of Mercy

Comments

Actuarial Lurker

So- for the pre-watch...again with the titles- "The Quality of Mercy" is an obvious reference to The Merchant of Venice and more generally will the characters exact a "pound of flesh" for retributive "justice" or spare the others who have slighted them. So what does Pete do with Bob, What does Don do at work with a certain situation", what does Sally do after having seen Don with Sylvia literally with his pants down? Revisit this theme post episode...

Actuarial Lurker

You've reached the Bob episode and Nixon's Southern Strategy Ad....compare that to the 1960 campaign in Season 1!

Actuarial Lurker

Rosemary's Baby and Don is the demon-child...

Actuarial Lurker

The reveal...that Bob is..a wannabe Don with a past!

Actuarial Lurker

And if its Gleason's last great idea...Peggy will lose credit for any awards the ad might win...Don with the D-move

Chris
>>138032565

Right, this is possibly the worst part because Ted and Peggy’s humiliation is temporary but Peggy can never take credit for that ad if it is successful or wins a clio. A d-move indeed!

Actuarial Lurker

So post-episode. Pete shows Mercy. Don doesn't show mercy but he gets indirect retribution so earns the Rosemary's Baby Award. Sally seeks "retribution" against Rollo via Glen. Will Sally show mercy to Don...we have a cliffhanger

Actuarial Lurker

So Don opens the episode and closes it in the fetal position, is the Baby when Ted and Peggy pitch the idea before meeting the client. So was the season opener a desire for death...or a desire to crawl back in the womb since he is that broken?

Weird Magic

Originally airing on June 16, 2013, 'The Quality of Mercy' is Episode 12 of Season 6 of Mad Men. It is the 77th episode overall and has an IMDB rating of 8.5, placing it as the #5 ranked episode of this season and #27 out of all the episodes shown so far.

Brian Harris

Extraordinary episode. My only real comment is to watch the way Sally smokes that cigarette that Betty offers her. It’s the gesture of a woman twice her age. She’s haunted. It’s really sad how her childhood has been lost. Kind of a miracle that Kiernan Shipka turned out to be the prodigy that she was. So much of the later half of the show is about how she becomes a woman.

Jesus

Spoiler alert: this show will end without the rushed loss of quality endemic to high-stake titles during their final seasons

Dylan Hearts

I really like season 6, and with years it only gets better as I understand nuances more. I used to think that earlier seasons were the peak of Mad Men, but it actually seasons 5-7 that make the whole series truly iconic. These characters development, more social commentary on the 1960s (done with subtlety which many shows completely lacking), music choices and overall design (interiors, costumes, hairstyling and make-up). And I just recently rewatched the finale of S6 (trying to be ahead of you, guys) - "In Care Of" - and had the same reaction as back in the 2010s: this is pure art! Especially the last shot before the credits. And season 7 is a brilliant conclusion to Mad Men universe, kinda envy that you'll experience it for the first time. Have a nice time with it!

Youtalkingtome
>>138032565

I didn't even consider that. There's layers to how big of a D bag he was being there. I really hate him sometimes.

Youtalkingtome
>>138033509

I don't know. I just don't see Sally telling anyone. I think that's something they both just have to live with and never address again.

Youtalkingtome
>>138046470

They have showed us several times that she is on her way to woman hood and I think her catching Don, was really the loss of innocence. It's interesting that it's always Sally walking in on people. She saw Roger in a very familiar scene and was affected by it. Obviously not in the same way, this really feels like the straw that broke the camel's back.

Youtalkingtome
>>138099111

Thank you. Every time we end an episode we just look at each other and say wow. It's insane to us how good this show is. I want to start it over as soon as I finish it. Season 6 might be the most nuanced season. I'm gunna have to go back and really think about which one is my favorite. I think it's 5, but this one is really up there for me.

Actuarial Lurker
>>138046470

I wouldn't blame Sally if she has learned that all men cheat by seeing her father and Roger both doing it...at least least she is learning by having it happen top others rather than Joan, Trudy and Betty who have to live with the assaults and cheating

Actuarial Lurker
>>138029296

And how it bookends the prior episode where everyone was giving something to get something back...mercy involves selflessness

Actuarial Lurker
>>138032565

I don't think Don was thinking that deeply...he probably didn't think- the way that he didn't think when he impulsively fired Jaguar to Joan's chagrin

Jesus
>>138099111

So much of Mad Men virality was fueled by the early invulnerable and unbeatable bravado of Don seasons 1-3. Everyone in my frat was aspiring to be a uber confident business titan seemingly immune to liquor and perpetually surrounded by doting 20-something women. But you never saw memes about the decline of ability, the loss of interest, the isolation, or the self destruction that Don goes through, or the way he becomes a real-world villain in so many people’s lives all because his compass needle cant stop spinning. Its no surprise that Joe and Kevin weren’t expecting this to be the greatest show of all time because so much of its online footprint was on the more testosteronal one-dimensional Alpha Male end of the internet spectrum: too many people walked away celebrating the Don Draper façade but never saw the ongoing Dick Whitman tragedy. Also Great scene to call out from In Care Of - the last three episodes of season 6 are an amazing arc.

Hawaiian Shirt Funeral

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't think Don threw cold water on Ted and Peggy just to be petty. I think Don genuinely thought it was the right thing to do for all parties involved. Don is in bad shape in large part due to his own infidelities. The road that Peggy and Ted are starting down is the same one that has cost Don dearly. I feel like Don's self-loathing motivated him to try and keep other people from making his mistakes.

tom

Oh, wow. A lot that I thought happened in this episode is actually happening the next episode. It's like S5 all over again! I'm excited, I love the S6 finale

tom
>>138145158

That's definitely a reading of the scene. I don't want to invalidate it, but going off of everything about Don's timbre during and after that meeting, his, posture, expressions, his voice etc in how he justified himself... in my opinion he clearly enjoyed the power he held over Ted and Peggy in that moment. The two of them were being over the top, but I think it really bothered Don because he saw people that were happy and in his own misery he wanted it to stop.

tom
>>138099111

@Jesus And in the last decade or so when misery has become an attractive online aesthetic, you see a lot of memes of Don smoking a cigarette with some quote demonstrating some inner turmoil for the reader to relate to, but it's all aesthetically-pleasing misery. There's a lot of similar examples with Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. I don't think people in these circles you refer to are ignorant of Don Draper being unhappy, because that unhappiness is so clearly fetishized by already unhappy men using his image. I think the way they see it is "I'm already depressed, but I'd rather be depressed and look like Don Draper". That's why this season especially is so important in showing the physical descent of Don and shattering the appealing fantasy of the moody, dreamy quality to Don's discontent. Often his face is red and bloated, his eyes are bleary, his work and home lives are falling apart, he goes on power trips to destroy people's happiness, he fumbles pitches because he's subconsciously fantasizing about suicide, he gets caught having an affair by his teenage daughter. It makes it harder for the viewer, in wilful ignorance, to take the attractive parts of Don and project themselves or fantasize about it, without seeing the full picture.

tom

It's like a golden rule of the show or something. It senses that you like Betty and it throws you a curveball. Touching moment of her connecting with her daughter? Now she's giving her a cigarette. Lol! But I just roll with it, a thing of the times and all that. "My father has never given me anything" is along with "You make me sick!" for Sally lines that really stick with me

Youtalkingtome
>>138046470

True. Then she also has Glen.....I wonder if he will also let her down, or if he'll always be there for her.

Youtalkingtome
>>138099111

Good points on both ends. How many people idolize Tony Montana or Micheal Corleone. It's like did you not get the ending? All this glamor and power, only to end up completely alone or dead. Yeah, he looks cool and he was "the man." He's also at this point a loser.

Youtalkingtome
>>138145158

Yeah, he should have said something but not in that moment. Not in the way that he did. That was intentional and he was being a d***.

Hawaiian Shirt Funeral
>>138145158

Tom, I get what you are saying, but I see the enjoyment as masochism from Don. Last episode Sally caught Don in the act of cheating on his second wife after his infidelity ruined his marriage to Sally's own mother. That sequence of events immediately precedes this. I think the enjoyment we saw Don get out of shaming Peggy and Ted is part of Don's self loathing. He gets to have the conversation out loud that he's been having with himself. Look at Don at the very end of the episode after Peggy confronts him. He balls up on the couch. He looks like a poster child for depression. I don't think that is a man reveling in the moral high ground.

heheheheheh

Funny gag I just noticed is that you guys shouted "Oh my god! Did they kill Ken?!" Kind of echoing South Park's famous "Oh my god! They killed Kenny!" and we hear several people refer to Ken as "Kenny" this episode. Hmm :D

heheheheheh

Christina Hendricks broke character when Don was doing the "waah waah". That was cute.

heheheheheh

From Mad Style: These scenes (with Sally at Ms Porter's) were about the many ways in which she’s trying to get away from her father’s influence by embracing her mother’s desires for her, but she keeps demonstrating the falseness of the statement “My father never gave me anything.” From her blue plaid to her smoking and drinking to the need to punish someone else, Sally’s story this episode was about how she’s more like Don than she ever wants to be. Note that Rolo is wearing a black turtleneck, just like Don, the man Sally really wants to punish. Stand-ins within stand-ins in this story." https://tomandlorenzo.com/2013/06/mad-style-the-quality-of-mercy/

Robert Bauman

Sally wanting to run away from her family after that traumatic incident is an understandable reaction but also something Don would do. Maybe her Dad gave her the "run away from my problems" gene instead of nothing lol

Youtalkingtome
>>138327023

Great call. It is totally reasonable to want to get away from that situation. It's very possible he did. Only time will tell with her character arc.

tom
>>138145158

But what you've said now is different than your initial point about him genuinely trying to do the right thing. I agree his actions this episode are influenced by being in a low place and having low self worth, but that doesn't mean he wasn't intending to embarrass them and make them feel shame.

Hawaiian Shirt Funeral
>>138145158

I feel like my second comment is just expanding on the point I made in my first. It's part and parcel of the same thing. Put simply, you said Don doesn't want to see others happy while he is miserable. I think Don hates himself and as an extension of that doesn't want other people to repeat his mistakes.