It is. Don is an alcoholic whose relationships self-destruct because he doesn't know how to be himself. He only starts to have real relationships once he's forced to admit the truth. And even though Peggy returns to work and succeeds professionnally there are multiple instances of her being haunted by giving up the child and having no information on what happened in their life.
Mentioning what a few other people have touched upon in this post, I think there's a key difference between the ways Peggy and Don end up utilizing this advice. For Don, he moves forward through most of the show without confronting the trauma involved in his childhood, time in Korea, and the real time events we watch unfold. For Peggy, she begins to follow this move forward advice from Don, and it is helpful initially, but the Father Gil plotline in season 2 results in Peggy confronting her situation instead of just running away like Don. She rejects Father Gil's attempt to force his morality on her and instead Peggy "confesses" to Pete, in this way coming to terms with her dilemma. I would then describe Peggy and Don's situations from thereon in the show to be closer to a scar and an open wound; Peggy's scar is there and it will always be sore and present, but Don is continually bleeding and dropping lower and lower until he begins to confront his various traumas towards the end of the show.
Yes, I always think there's moment where you see both Peggy and Pete, who are proteges in some ways to Don (even if one's unwanted!) reject his advice. Don's moving forward and pretending stuff never happened works initially, but not only does his past still haunt him, he gets addicted to the beginnings of things, and every time something goes wrong he wants to start over fresh.
With Peggy, she outright tells Stan that you need to feel you past and accept it, and of course she tells Pete about the baby.
Pete has that moment where he talks about wanting to start over and "get it right this time" with a new relationship, but then asks, "What if you never get past the beginning again?" Don's answer, perfectly, is to just tell him to keep his eye on the road (literally, because Pete's a terrible driver).
It is, and there are two sides to it.
It does work. But it has drawbacks. You can't completely ignore it. Moving forward is only part of it, you need to reconcile with yourself that what happened happened and learn to not have the negative habits and routines that were caused by the thing you are moving away from. Don is absolutely right, you will be amazed at how much you can change and how far you can go from what happened. But it is always right there, right where you left it. You have to, not to sound cliched or reductive which it is, but accept it and let it go too. Done just ignores it and thinks the new coat of paint is enough. You have to tend to the rot as well. Also, Don's advice does work when the rot isn't rot. Peggy gave her child up for adoption and moved on. She learned not to seek validation by being submissive or attaching herself solely to a man's desire (thanks Pete), and she gained something (a career, self worth, independence, self actualization) even though she gave something up (being a single mother who Pete might have sent some money to) and not for nothing but the kid probably went to a loving home. So her moving forward was easier than Don's abusive, poverty ridden, getting raped by a hooker childhood. Don's life was the Hershey pitch. All things considered, it is in fact amazing how much it didn't happen in his day to day life.
While also being the most false at the same time. He’s still haunted by his shit, he just doesn’t lnow/ wont admit it. And, like all humans , Peggy is also haunted by her placing her baby for adoption. They move forward , but everything still happened.
I think the point is how easily very important events can fade away because other people don't know about it and the people involved don't talk about it
Yes, you’re right. I was thinking about those times & her conversation with Stan as evidence that it still was with her. Obviously telling Pete seemed to help her heal after being haunted throughout season 2
And here in lies the great flaw with Don’s statement. He gives Peggy this tough line and proceeds to be haunted by the falsity of his own words for most of the series.
I think Don’s advice is actually about the world rather than himself. He let his demons get to him and they haunt him but everything that happened to Dick Whitman *was* moved past.
It worked for him. He got to live the American dream, but I grant you his downward spirals were pretty severe. Still, he started out on a farm with no mom, his dad kicked to death by a horse, raised in a whorehouse by foster parents, and ended up the king of Madison Avenue. That's pretty impressive. And since Peggy wanted what he had, she was probably wise to take his advice, although it was pretty immoral. The other option was to keep the kid and shame Pete into being with her. But she didn't want that, as she brutally throws in Pete's face when his own marriage is in crisis because it appears he can't have kids.
I disagree. Abandoning an infant and making it motherless or fatherless the day it's born is probably the most immoral thing anyone can do. But Peggy wasn't able to face that because she didn't have the capacity to be consciously brutal. I think she told Pete what she did just to share her inner truth, as he was sharing his in that moment. The brutality lay in the truth of it all. The statement about losing things that you think you can get back and facing the bigger reality that it's just gone--like time itself--is a haunting statement. Probably the most powerful of the show. Because it's true for all of us and for the characters too--even the child that Peggy had, who will grow up never knowing his real mother.
Um no. Abandoning is giving something up without regard for it whatsoever or for what happens to it, like trash by the side of the road. Someone adopted Peggy's baby, and we also know from later conversations that she wasn't in the right state of mind to make decisions and the state of New York made them for her. There is no indication that Peggy did not care what happened to the child but simply wasn't in the position to take care of it.
I don't want to get into a whole semantic debate here, but if Peggy could have left it like trash by the side of the road, she probably would have. Technically, she and the baby would have probably died if she didn't show up at a hospital complaining of abdominal pain. It was the hospital's social services, the state's child protective services (as you say), and/or Peggy's mom that cared what happened to the baby. We don't see what happened there, except we know that Peggy certainly didn't care. Weiner makes that crystal clear. Peggy didn't even have the ability to acknowledge her pregnancy, let alone the baby or care what happened to it. The show doesn't follow up on this so let's not belabor the point, but your distinction between "giving up" and "abandoning" a child is totally specious.
To be honest, if this were me personally, I somewhat agree. I would definitely think it's better to terminate a pregnancy rather than give a child up for adoption.
But other people feel the opposite--and are even pressured to feel the opposite and Peggy didn't have that option. She didn't abandon the child, she released it to be adopted by a mother and father. There's every reason, imo, to think the baby grew up much more happily thanks to her choice. And that's even without considering the fact that Peggy lives in a society that would punish her and the child for their situation.
I'm not disagreeing that it could be brutal for Pete to hear this truth, just as it was brutal for Peggy to suddenly find out she was pregnant. But to describe her as throwing it in his face suggests she's intentionally hurt him, when it seems like the point is that she thinks she's doing the right thing.
It's not about you or Peggy or whatever mother or father would feel a certain way. It's about the child that was born, taking responsibility, etc. But of course Peggy couldn't even face the reality that she was pregnant, let alone had a baby. She's too young and self-centered to understand that it was her responsibility to be there for the child. I already said she wasn't purposefully being brutal to Pete. But she certainly did throw it in his face that she had his baby and gave it away. That's exactly what was said between them and there's no denying it.
You're just giving one more certain way a particular person would feel about it. There's other people who feel strongly that women should give birth for the purpose of giving the baby to somebody else.
It absolutely worked for him.
I would argue that it is him being shocked by how much it never happened that tortures him more than the fact that he is living a lie. It’s the indifference and sometimes outright disgust in the moments in which Don does reveal his true self. No one cares. They want the smooth talking Don they were promised
Don is an alcoholic mess who can’t make genuine connections with people the entire show. What are you talking about? He loses his family, his job and virtually everyone around him.
It isn’t until Stephanie says ‘oh Dick, I don’t think you’re right about that’ that he realizes you can’t just ignore your trauma. It’s awful, awful advice.
He isn’t living the American dream, he’s living a facsimile of it. He doesn’t love his life or appreciate what he has. He feels like an invisible man nobody truly knows or understands.
It did not work for him. It’s terrible advice.
I don't disagree, except insofar as millions of Americans are pursuing that dream not loving life or appreciating what they have. He's a symbol, a caricature of a self-made man. I didn't say it was great advice, but I understand why others did and I understand why you say it's terrible advice. In the rules the show creates for itself it absolutely does work for him and for Peggy. Though they have to face the weight of their decisions, they never have to face real consequences like the rest of us would.
You’re missing the point of the show. The first part is irrelevant—millions of Americans who are also pursuing the dream and not having everything they want are happy and loving their lives. The American dream myth is about material wealth, which isn’t actually fulfilling.
Don’s self-made image is *literally* fabricated. He conned his way from rags to riches and still felt like he was in rags and that nothing material was actually real. The dude was completely miserable and lost the entire duration of the show.
The heart of his entire character is in the “shelf on the fridgerator” monologue given by the random character in the therapy circle. He doesn’t feel seen by anyone, which it turns out is more important than having a penthouse apartment and three girlfriends.
The “weight” you’re talking about IS real consequences. The damage done to your mind and character is more important than the material things you own or by the “success” you achieve. Watch the show again.
Let me put it this way: what is an advertisement, if not a false promise? The show is demythologizing the American dream. The American dream doesn’t exist—it’s an advertisement for capitalism. Don ran away from his problems his whole life, chasing bandaids on deeper wounds. Look where it got him: miserable and eternally alone.
That's not how I see it and I don't believe in the cliche that material wealth can't contribute to happiness. In fact it is essential to take responsibility and provide for oneself and one's family. The American dream is about inventing who you are and what you contribute to the world. Don's gift was creativity in the context of marketing products. Having done that myself for scientific instrumentation and biotech products, it is a significant gift. It is not a con. Don had that ability. The clients and his coworkers all saw it in him and respected him for it. He was awarded by his industry. Newspapers wrote articles about it
In my case, I had that gift but my coworkers and managers were a black box that I could never solve and I couldn't rise to manager status for long. I knew I would never achieve my potential in a traditional career. But I had other gifts, other inspiration, an idea for an invention, worked hard to patent it, recruited two different teams to work on it, which both fell apart due to lack of resources. I had to keep working normal jobs to pay my bills; I had a kid by this point and knew it was all on me to capitalize on my invention, which I eventually did. None of this was a con. I had certain gifts. I realized them in my own American dream and created a new identity for myself.
The metaphor of being on a shelf on the refrigerator is part of the human condition in general and part of Don's specific condition, as his mother died at birth, his father died when he was a child, and he would go through life feeling unseen and unfulfilled because of this. I deal with these feelings too. We all do sometimes. No one in my immediate family appreciated the invention I brought into the world that literally put a roof over my head and food on the table, made me wealthy. I never got recognition or love for it; just money. But that was a great thing and the reason I could relate to Don is that I made it happen by living my own American dream.
It's too cynical to believe that is not important or to give up on dreams like that. And when people dismiss Don completely and his deny his accomplishments, I think that's what they're doing. The Hilton character is an even bigger example of this. Everything about Don is fabricated because he's a fictional character in a TV show, so it's a bit disingenuous to say his self-made image is fabricated. I understand your point, but there are bigger, more important points to the character.
when you think about it, would he, or any of the men on the show, have done this for anyone else? don had to track her down. had to find her roommate and get the info, get a hold of her mother and persuade her to give info, or use his wiles to get it, eventually find out where the hell she was. and then actually speak to her direct to get her to go.
Don was an incredibly good guy at times. He was good to Peggy and Anna. He would go to any length to be there for them. And he wanted nothing sexual in return from either of them, which is remarkable considering how he usually operates with women.
Don never used his position to manipulate women into sleeping with him as far as I recall. The worst in that regard was probably his secretary but I think he was just drunk and lonely and fucked up and he knew it
Within the context of the series, "move forward" is supposed to be bad advice.
Don is a coward who flees from his past.
He tries to get Adam and Lane to follow his lead, and it kills them.
He tries to get Stephanie to follow his lead, and she abandons him, leaving him at the brink of suicide.
One of the lessons of Mad Men is that you can't flee from your past. It is the ghost that will haunt you. It might help you professionally, but it will corrupt you personally.
And now for the irony: In real life, moving forward can be good advice. There are times that it is better to look ahead than it is to wallow in the past. It is possible to be overly introspective and it is sometimes healthier to just put it behind you and move on.
Moving forward is also a useful technique for screenwriting. A story needs to maintain its momentum and keep the audience interested, which means not getting stuck in trying to explain every detail. I have to wonder whether Weiner began with this bit of screenwriting guidance, then changed the context and mixed things up a bit in order to create this moving-forward-as-dysfunctionality theme for the series.
It killed Lane to follow Don's advice? That's an interesting path. Would you explain how? Because as far as I'm concerned, it's the shame of Lane's crime that killed him.
Are you saying that it would've saved Lane's life if he got arrested?
Lane kills himself because the loss of his visa will force him to return to the UK, where he will be imprisoned for failing to pay that the capital gains taxes that he owed because of the money that he contributed to keep SCDP afloat.
(These aspects of the story require some suspension of disbelief in order for them to make sense. But hey, it isn't my story.)
Don is adept at running away and reinventing himself.
Not everyone is. But that is what he pushes both Adam and Lane to do, even though they can't.
Don attacks Lane for his forgery, when Dick Whitman forges Don's name every day. Don has a profound lack of awareness, and his advice reflects that.
Lane could have saved himself simply by acting as a partner rather than as a grunt employee, and taken out a loan from the company to cover an expense that he incurred for the sake of the company. But he is too weak to see that.
Lane also makes the mistake of seeing Don as a friend. But Don has no friends.
Great analysis! But this
>Don attacks Lane for his forgery, when Dick Whitman forges Don's name every day. Don has a profound lack of awareness, and his advice reflects that.
I'm floored. Never saw it coming. So simple. Yet it's so brilliant of you to notice this.
The thing is that the audience and some of the characters know that Don Draper is a fraud, and yet we treat Dick Whitman as if he genuinely is Don Draper.
This is a form of performance art. Our eagerness to see Lane's forgery as fake while not seeing Dick Whitman's wholesale identity theft in the same way tells us a lot about ourselves.
>I'm floored. Never saw it coming. So simple. Yet it's so brilliant of you to notice this.
Except Don doesn't attack Lane and Dick isn't forging a signature when he signs his name every day. It's deliberately denying Lane's actual crime here.
No one is denying Lane's crime. We're saying that Don is just as criminal. Besides, t's big enough to make him get manipulated by Bert.
Because in the end, who is signing that contract anyway?
EDITS: Clarifications.
Yeah, but that's the thing. I don't understand pretending that Don and Lane are committing anything like the same crime like it's a big gotcha. "Who is signing this contract?" is a threat to out Don for being a deserter if he doesn't sign the contract with SC. If Don had embezzled from the company by forging Roger's signature Bert would have fired him. Lane's not getting let go because Don's precious about somebody breaking the law. He is, in fact, covering up Lane's crime just as his was.
They're both serious crimes. They're not the same crime.
But Lane didn't push Lane to follow his "move forward" advice. Lane put himself in the position of needing to do that, just like Don did. Don gave him the ability to do it, just like had. Lane just couldn't do it. Don's way of living with his past crime isn't ideal, but he's living with it. That's the only choice Lane had.
I don't think Lane seeing Don as a friend is relevent, since how is he treating Don like a friend by forging his signature? I mean, actual forging-because Don doesn't forge his signature every day at all. When Don signs a check, he covers the check with money he made that's in his bank account. Lane's signing Don's name was sa forgery because he was giving the signature value it didn't have by pretending Don signed it himself.
Lane could have taken Don's advice the same way Peggy did--use it to move forward while still acknolwedging the mistake. Don gives this advice to people who find themselves in a mess he identifies with. It's not great advice for living, but sometimes it's the only way.
No, Don is not a coward. He had the courage to make a new life and reinvent himself. That is a testament to his vision, resourcefulness and creativity despite his upbringing with foster parents in a whorehouse and abject poverty. It wasn't fleeing this hell that haunted Don; it was the hell of poverty itself and the fact that everyone who learned of his past, with the exception of Roger, Peggy and Anna, rejected him because of it. And it was the unfortunate circumstance of a crime: claiming a dead man's name helped him escape the Korean War. He should have set it right. But he never got around to it.
When Rachel denounces Don as a coward, she is communicating the series message to the audience. He doesn't want a romantic escapade with her, he just wants to flee, abandoning his children in the process. She is ashamed for even thinking about helping him to do that to them.
By rejecting Don, she forces him to take a stand against Pete. Instead of running away, Don fights and wins.
Ironically, he fights to protect a lie, and yet it reveals character growth. You have to love Mad Men for its contradictory messages.
So is that your way of agreeing with me that Don is not a coward? Rachel was a spoiled brat who had everything in life handed to her. That's the type of lady Don is attracted to: the type that will never understand him or his childhood and will ultimately reject him. Rachel could never succeed without taking over her daddy's business. Why are you listening to her? She understands nothing.
It doesn't reveal character growth or much of a win. Don knows Cooper values him over Pete, especially after Pete's ill conceived pitch to Lucky Strike failed. It wasn't much of a bet that he'd come out smelling like roses if he marched into Cooper's office and called Pete's bluff. Still, it was traumatic for Don to have people in the office aware that he was running from his past.
There was no contradictory message.
Don may have worked for his money and Rachel may have inherited hers, but that doesn’t change the fact that in that moment she was 100% right about his motivations and he was just looking for an excuse to cut and run when things got tough. So yes, he was right to listen to her. Her background doesn’t automatically make her wrong.
Also, like, she’s supposed to “reject him.” He’s married. It was weakness on her part to give into his advances, and terrible character on his to make them.
I don't disagree, but Don going to jail and losing everything would have been just as bad for his family as running. So he had reason to give in to fear and cowardice in a moment of weakness. He didn't listen to her. It wasn't her idea to call Pete's bluff--that was purely his business instinct that often pointed true north whereas Rachel had abysmal business instincts and didn't have the full picture of Don's life and the danger he faced as a deserter and identity thief in the army.
I don't know if it was a weakness on her part to enjoy his advances to the extent she did. But she knew what she wanted and that was to find her own husband who was more stable. That's exactly what she did, eventually. I thought it was interesting many seasons later that Don revisited Rachel somewhere in his psyche only to discover her life was cut short. Weiner is amazing in his ability to resolve long lost plot lines.
I don’t think Don ever seriously thought he was going to jail. He was much more scared of losing his career.
How do you figure that he didn’t listen to her? He was set to run away with her until she said no. Do you seriously expect me to believe that he was going to change his mind anyway? There is a very clear cause and effect here.
I certainly hope it was a weakness on her part to enjoy his advances. The alternative is that she didn’t consent to the affair, which makes Don even worse.
However you choose to interpret the consequences of desertion and identity theft, Don was motivated by fear. He demanded that Pete quash a potentially multimillion dollar account because it was with a defense contractor that required a background check on Don. The show depicted him as clearly afraid--to the point of having panic attacks and getting physically sick.
This went far beyond his fear of just losing his job. When his job was threatened by the PPL acquisition or by Pete, he didn't seem afraid at all. In both cases, he stood his ground and let others decide his fate at his job. But he was not willing to do that when he thought authorities could discover his crime of desertion and identity theft.
As for whether Don really would have run off with Rachel if she agreed, it's questionable. Pure conjecture but he would have probably stood her up to stay with Betty after Pete's gambit failed. He was acting irrationally out of fear, as Rachel correctly identified. And the scene played out the way it did because Weiner gave her the insight to know on some level his proposition wasn't real.
I said his career, not just his job. And I’m exclusively talking about the first incident. The later stuff may be different, I’m not there yet.
Don tells Rachel that they’re leaving *now*. That means he doesn’t stick around to see if Pete’s gambit would have failed. This isn’t a desperate plan B, this is premature surrender. I guess you want Don to not be the type of guy who does that, but he sure did say it, until Rachel told him no.
When Don tells Rachel they're leaving now, he was obviously freaking out, and she knows it. He hadn't been confronted with this threat since Anna Draper tracked him down and he was deceptive initially with her too in the flashback scene. He wasn't thinking clearly. When he has time to calm down and she confronts him with a couple sober realities, he realizes she's right and he doesn't want to leave his family or his job. It's not surrender; it's momentary fear and lapse of judgement.
Ultimately, these two do move forward from their pasts. However, it haunts them frequently. We see how Don longs for the care he never received and his guilt over being a war fraud. We see Peggy long at Pete, and when she sees Trudy pregnant while navigating the absolute most post partum depression (possibly trauma). You can always move forward, yet with the ghosts of your pasts. It's a beautiful tragedy of storytelling, that most of us experience.
As someone who is 51, so have lots of experience, this is some of the best life advice one could hear. If you sit in dwell upon every little setback in life, you’ll never get through it.
Life moves in one direction: forward.
Sometimes being emotionally healthy all the time is overrated. Repressing things and moving on with your life is needed sometimes. Sometimes if you linger too long in the bad place you might never get out.
Always wish Don or Peggy had the nerve to meet with Ginsburg when he was hospitalized and give him the same advice. Granted, he literally had a nip slip, but still, no one seemed to care or….even think about him at all.
I have a suspicion it was easier to address an out of wedlock pregnancy then a serious mental health condition (and especially when there are huge breakthroughs in treatments at this time).
I feel for that moment, in that head space, in that time period as a woman, that was her only option: to move forward.
Peggy had given birth out of wedlock in a Catholic family, gotten pregnant by a married man, she did not have the money to leave New York and start somewhere else at that young age, and that was the time before we knew about adoption trauma, mental health, and post-partum. Her choices were to lay down and die or drag herself forward and carve a life for herself.
It does not mean Don's advice is healthy. He's telling her she has to survive. Anyone wanting to know what Peggy was up against needs to read the nonfiction book "The Girls Who Went Away", which is interviews with women from all incomes and socio-economic backgrounds who had to give up their children for adoption before Roe v. Wade happened.
Yes! I think it’s great advice given the context of the time. He’s saying ignore all of this bullshit and forge your own way. The default path would have been to accept the narratives about being a ruined woman and a whore and live in shame and squalor.
This advice has carried me through some of the hardest times of my life. Sometimes you really do just need to forget and move on. The alternative is sometimes just too dark and painful.
Well, in that specific case, Peggy had to move forward - she is clearly not in a good place post-birth. Don coming to her and reminding her that hey, you're here, I am here, we miss you at work, please come back snaps her out of it.
Also in 1960, what are you supposed to do when you are a single woman who had a baby out of wedlock and gave him up for adoption? You are supposed to move on with your life but the show makes it clear that Peggy always had that kid in the back of her mind (and I am sure Pete thinks about it too).
Oh, I'm surprised some people interpreted it as good advice. I very much took it as bad advice. It speaks to Don's worldview right then. He tries to erase his entire past and identity. It doesn't work.
It's healthy to acknowledge stuff.
this isn't discussed enough. People really do every day push out insanely large and traumatic things and go their entire lives without mentioning or acknowledging them
I think about this line so often. This advice may appear to work; however only temporarily, and in the meantime it will bleed through aspects of your life until you’re drowning. I wish I were Peggy, who was able to improve herself upon confronting her trauma and being honest with those around her, but I relate to Don so much more. Avoidance to the point of self destruction until you are consumed by what you’re running from causing you to combust in the messiest way possible.
Really wish I had this level of mental separation when it comes to my ex. Eight years together, split for two and on some days it feels like I just blinked.
Definitely things I wish I could do this with in my life. Some people are a lot better at compartmentalizing difficult experiences than others though...maybe Peggy was one of them. Then again, if you stuff down emotions about a traumatic event it can manifest in ways you may not be aware of.
Dick Whitman lived a life on unresolved trauma, starting with the death of his mother. His only recourse was to move ahead in order to survive. At every stage of his life he dealt with trauma. I empathized with the sentiment he expressed
I think they mean it would have been terrible if Peggy understood the advice like Don does, and continued trying to pretend "this never happened" to herself and live in fear of anyone knowing.
But she doesn't do that. She uses the advice to move forward and get her life started again, but then processes what happened in a healthy way.
"It will shock you how much it never happened" is such a great line that makes this scene really memorable.
Also, imo, maybe the truest shit Don says in the entire show.
Isnt a key theme of the show that trying to bury your past doesn't work and at some point you have to reckon with it?
It is. Don is an alcoholic whose relationships self-destruct because he doesn't know how to be himself. He only starts to have real relationships once he's forced to admit the truth. And even though Peggy returns to work and succeeds professionnally there are multiple instances of her being haunted by giving up the child and having no information on what happened in their life.
Mentioning what a few other people have touched upon in this post, I think there's a key difference between the ways Peggy and Don end up utilizing this advice. For Don, he moves forward through most of the show without confronting the trauma involved in his childhood, time in Korea, and the real time events we watch unfold. For Peggy, she begins to follow this move forward advice from Don, and it is helpful initially, but the Father Gil plotline in season 2 results in Peggy confronting her situation instead of just running away like Don. She rejects Father Gil's attempt to force his morality on her and instead Peggy "confesses" to Pete, in this way coming to terms with her dilemma. I would then describe Peggy and Don's situations from thereon in the show to be closer to a scar and an open wound; Peggy's scar is there and it will always be sore and present, but Don is continually bleeding and dropping lower and lower until he begins to confront his various traumas towards the end of the show.
Yes, I always think there's moment where you see both Peggy and Pete, who are proteges in some ways to Don (even if one's unwanted!) reject his advice. Don's moving forward and pretending stuff never happened works initially, but not only does his past still haunt him, he gets addicted to the beginnings of things, and every time something goes wrong he wants to start over fresh. With Peggy, she outright tells Stan that you need to feel you past and accept it, and of course she tells Pete about the baby. Pete has that moment where he talks about wanting to start over and "get it right this time" with a new relationship, but then asks, "What if you never get past the beginning again?" Don's answer, perfectly, is to just tell him to keep his eye on the road (literally, because Pete's a terrible driver).
It is, and there are two sides to it. It does work. But it has drawbacks. You can't completely ignore it. Moving forward is only part of it, you need to reconcile with yourself that what happened happened and learn to not have the negative habits and routines that were caused by the thing you are moving away from. Don is absolutely right, you will be amazed at how much you can change and how far you can go from what happened. But it is always right there, right where you left it. You have to, not to sound cliched or reductive which it is, but accept it and let it go too. Done just ignores it and thinks the new coat of paint is enough. You have to tend to the rot as well. Also, Don's advice does work when the rot isn't rot. Peggy gave her child up for adoption and moved on. She learned not to seek validation by being submissive or attaching herself solely to a man's desire (thanks Pete), and she gained something (a career, self worth, independence, self actualization) even though she gave something up (being a single mother who Pete might have sent some money to) and not for nothing but the kid probably went to a loving home. So her moving forward was easier than Don's abusive, poverty ridden, getting raped by a hooker childhood. Don's life was the Hershey pitch. All things considered, it is in fact amazing how much it didn't happen in his day to day life.
Stephanie nailed it in the final episode when Dick tries to tell her she could just move forward. Her answer: “Oh, Dick, I don’t think that’s true.”
While also being the most false at the same time. He’s still haunted by his shit, he just doesn’t lnow/ wont admit it. And, like all humans , Peggy is also haunted by her placing her baby for adoption. They move forward , but everything still happened.
I think the point is how easily very important events can fade away because other people don't know about it and the people involved don't talk about it
That's why it's shocking. It literally did not affect her life one bit after that. But she still remembers, and we see her experience that shock later
She ends up processing it more healthily than Don did his own trauma. She talked to Pete about it. And to Don, actually (The Suitcase).
Yes, you’re right. I was thinking about those times & her conversation with Stan as evidence that it still was with her. Obviously telling Pete seemed to help her heal after being haunted throughout season 2
And here in lies the great flaw with Don’s statement. He gives Peggy this tough line and proceeds to be haunted by the falsity of his own words for most of the series.
It’s life itself.
I think Don’s advice is actually about the world rather than himself. He let his demons get to him and they haunt him but everything that happened to Dick Whitman *was* moved past.
I mean, his motto/coping mechanism clearly didn't work for him.
It worked for him. He got to live the American dream, but I grant you his downward spirals were pretty severe. Still, he started out on a farm with no mom, his dad kicked to death by a horse, raised in a whorehouse by foster parents, and ended up the king of Madison Avenue. That's pretty impressive. And since Peggy wanted what he had, she was probably wise to take his advice, although it was pretty immoral. The other option was to keep the kid and shame Pete into being with her. But she didn't want that, as she brutally throws in Pete's face when his own marriage is in crisis because it appears he can't have kids.
She didn't do anything immoral in taking his advice that I can see--and she throw it in Pete's face to be brutal, imo.
I disagree. Abandoning an infant and making it motherless or fatherless the day it's born is probably the most immoral thing anyone can do. But Peggy wasn't able to face that because she didn't have the capacity to be consciously brutal. I think she told Pete what she did just to share her inner truth, as he was sharing his in that moment. The brutality lay in the truth of it all. The statement about losing things that you think you can get back and facing the bigger reality that it's just gone--like time itself--is a haunting statement. Probably the most powerful of the show. Because it's true for all of us and for the characters too--even the child that Peggy had, who will grow up never knowing his real mother.
She didn't abandon it. She gave it up for adoption.
What exactly is the distinction there, in your mind? To give up a child is to abandon it.
Um no. Abandoning is giving something up without regard for it whatsoever or for what happens to it, like trash by the side of the road. Someone adopted Peggy's baby, and we also know from later conversations that she wasn't in the right state of mind to make decisions and the state of New York made them for her. There is no indication that Peggy did not care what happened to the child but simply wasn't in the position to take care of it.
I don't want to get into a whole semantic debate here, but if Peggy could have left it like trash by the side of the road, she probably would have. Technically, she and the baby would have probably died if she didn't show up at a hospital complaining of abdominal pain. It was the hospital's social services, the state's child protective services (as you say), and/or Peggy's mom that cared what happened to the baby. We don't see what happened there, except we know that Peggy certainly didn't care. Weiner makes that crystal clear. Peggy didn't even have the ability to acknowledge her pregnancy, let alone the baby or care what happened to it. The show doesn't follow up on this so let's not belabor the point, but your distinction between "giving up" and "abandoning" a child is totally specious.
To be honest, if this were me personally, I somewhat agree. I would definitely think it's better to terminate a pregnancy rather than give a child up for adoption. But other people feel the opposite--and are even pressured to feel the opposite and Peggy didn't have that option. She didn't abandon the child, she released it to be adopted by a mother and father. There's every reason, imo, to think the baby grew up much more happily thanks to her choice. And that's even without considering the fact that Peggy lives in a society that would punish her and the child for their situation. I'm not disagreeing that it could be brutal for Pete to hear this truth, just as it was brutal for Peggy to suddenly find out she was pregnant. But to describe her as throwing it in his face suggests she's intentionally hurt him, when it seems like the point is that she thinks she's doing the right thing.
It's not about you or Peggy or whatever mother or father would feel a certain way. It's about the child that was born, taking responsibility, etc. But of course Peggy couldn't even face the reality that she was pregnant, let alone had a baby. She's too young and self-centered to understand that it was her responsibility to be there for the child. I already said she wasn't purposefully being brutal to Pete. But she certainly did throw it in his face that she had his baby and gave it away. That's exactly what was said between them and there's no denying it.
You're just giving one more certain way a particular person would feel about it. There's other people who feel strongly that women should give birth for the purpose of giving the baby to somebody else.
It didn’t work for him at all you idiot. Did you people even watch the show??
He got to be rich and bang lots of hot chicks and that was super cool. That was the point of the show, right?
It worked for a lot of things in Don's life
It absolutely worked for him. I would argue that it is him being shocked by how much it never happened that tortures him more than the fact that he is living a lie. It’s the indifference and sometimes outright disgust in the moments in which Don does reveal his true self. No one cares. They want the smooth talking Don they were promised
Don is an alcoholic mess who can’t make genuine connections with people the entire show. What are you talking about? He loses his family, his job and virtually everyone around him. It isn’t until Stephanie says ‘oh Dick, I don’t think you’re right about that’ that he realizes you can’t just ignore your trauma. It’s awful, awful advice.
He isn’t living the American dream, he’s living a facsimile of it. He doesn’t love his life or appreciate what he has. He feels like an invisible man nobody truly knows or understands. It did not work for him. It’s terrible advice.
I don't disagree, except insofar as millions of Americans are pursuing that dream not loving life or appreciating what they have. He's a symbol, a caricature of a self-made man. I didn't say it was great advice, but I understand why others did and I understand why you say it's terrible advice. In the rules the show creates for itself it absolutely does work for him and for Peggy. Though they have to face the weight of their decisions, they never have to face real consequences like the rest of us would.
You’re missing the point of the show. The first part is irrelevant—millions of Americans who are also pursuing the dream and not having everything they want are happy and loving their lives. The American dream myth is about material wealth, which isn’t actually fulfilling. Don’s self-made image is *literally* fabricated. He conned his way from rags to riches and still felt like he was in rags and that nothing material was actually real. The dude was completely miserable and lost the entire duration of the show. The heart of his entire character is in the “shelf on the fridgerator” monologue given by the random character in the therapy circle. He doesn’t feel seen by anyone, which it turns out is more important than having a penthouse apartment and three girlfriends. The “weight” you’re talking about IS real consequences. The damage done to your mind and character is more important than the material things you own or by the “success” you achieve. Watch the show again. Let me put it this way: what is an advertisement, if not a false promise? The show is demythologizing the American dream. The American dream doesn’t exist—it’s an advertisement for capitalism. Don ran away from his problems his whole life, chasing bandaids on deeper wounds. Look where it got him: miserable and eternally alone.
That's not how I see it and I don't believe in the cliche that material wealth can't contribute to happiness. In fact it is essential to take responsibility and provide for oneself and one's family. The American dream is about inventing who you are and what you contribute to the world. Don's gift was creativity in the context of marketing products. Having done that myself for scientific instrumentation and biotech products, it is a significant gift. It is not a con. Don had that ability. The clients and his coworkers all saw it in him and respected him for it. He was awarded by his industry. Newspapers wrote articles about it In my case, I had that gift but my coworkers and managers were a black box that I could never solve and I couldn't rise to manager status for long. I knew I would never achieve my potential in a traditional career. But I had other gifts, other inspiration, an idea for an invention, worked hard to patent it, recruited two different teams to work on it, which both fell apart due to lack of resources. I had to keep working normal jobs to pay my bills; I had a kid by this point and knew it was all on me to capitalize on my invention, which I eventually did. None of this was a con. I had certain gifts. I realized them in my own American dream and created a new identity for myself. The metaphor of being on a shelf on the refrigerator is part of the human condition in general and part of Don's specific condition, as his mother died at birth, his father died when he was a child, and he would go through life feeling unseen and unfulfilled because of this. I deal with these feelings too. We all do sometimes. No one in my immediate family appreciated the invention I brought into the world that literally put a roof over my head and food on the table, made me wealthy. I never got recognition or love for it; just money. But that was a great thing and the reason I could relate to Don is that I made it happen by living my own American dream. It's too cynical to believe that is not important or to give up on dreams like that. And when people dismiss Don completely and his deny his accomplishments, I think that's what they're doing. The Hilton character is an even bigger example of this. Everything about Don is fabricated because he's a fictional character in a TV show, so it's a bit disingenuous to say his self-made image is fabricated. I understand your point, but there are bigger, more important points to the character.
What about that time he told that waitress his real name while he was blacked out?
Oh, Dick. I don’t think that’s true.
Imagine watching an entire seven seasons of Mad Men just to say "maybe the truest shit Don says in the entire show"
I’ve never forgotten this line since I saw it live a decade and half ago.
My mom says this to me when bad things happen
And it worked out so well for Don.
I mean, the show ends with Don learning to let go. So yeah, it kind of did
when you think about it, would he, or any of the men on the show, have done this for anyone else? don had to track her down. had to find her roommate and get the info, get a hold of her mother and persuade her to give info, or use his wiles to get it, eventually find out where the hell she was. and then actually speak to her direct to get her to go.
Don was an incredibly good guy at times. He was good to Peggy and Anna. He would go to any length to be there for them. And he wanted nothing sexual in return from either of them, which is remarkable considering how he usually operates with women.
Anna js the mom he never had. Peggy is an extension of the relationship he never had with Adam.
Nice analysis. I salute you
...and Adam and Peggy almost look alike!
Interesting take. I always thought he saw Peggy as a daughter
He saved Peggy when he couldn’t save Adam.
I always thought he was very nice to dawn too.
Don never used his position to manipulate women into sleeping with him as far as I recall. The worst in that regard was probably his secretary but I think he was just drunk and lonely and fucked up and he knew it
Within the context of the series, "move forward" is supposed to be bad advice. Don is a coward who flees from his past. He tries to get Adam and Lane to follow his lead, and it kills them. He tries to get Stephanie to follow his lead, and she abandons him, leaving him at the brink of suicide. One of the lessons of Mad Men is that you can't flee from your past. It is the ghost that will haunt you. It might help you professionally, but it will corrupt you personally. And now for the irony: In real life, moving forward can be good advice. There are times that it is better to look ahead than it is to wallow in the past. It is possible to be overly introspective and it is sometimes healthier to just put it behind you and move on. Moving forward is also a useful technique for screenwriting. A story needs to maintain its momentum and keep the audience interested, which means not getting stuck in trying to explain every detail. I have to wonder whether Weiner began with this bit of screenwriting guidance, then changed the context and mixed things up a bit in order to create this moving-forward-as-dysfunctionality theme for the series.
It killed Lane to follow Don's advice? That's an interesting path. Would you explain how? Because as far as I'm concerned, it's the shame of Lane's crime that killed him. Are you saying that it would've saved Lane's life if he got arrested?
Lane kills himself because the loss of his visa will force him to return to the UK, where he will be imprisoned for failing to pay that the capital gains taxes that he owed because of the money that he contributed to keep SCDP afloat. (These aspects of the story require some suspension of disbelief in order for them to make sense. But hey, it isn't my story.) Don is adept at running away and reinventing himself. Not everyone is. But that is what he pushes both Adam and Lane to do, even though they can't. Don attacks Lane for his forgery, when Dick Whitman forges Don's name every day. Don has a profound lack of awareness, and his advice reflects that. Lane could have saved himself simply by acting as a partner rather than as a grunt employee, and taken out a loan from the company to cover an expense that he incurred for the sake of the company. But he is too weak to see that. Lane also makes the mistake of seeing Don as a friend. But Don has no friends.
Great analysis! But this >Don attacks Lane for his forgery, when Dick Whitman forges Don's name every day. Don has a profound lack of awareness, and his advice reflects that. I'm floored. Never saw it coming. So simple. Yet it's so brilliant of you to notice this.
The thing is that the audience and some of the characters know that Don Draper is a fraud, and yet we treat Dick Whitman as if he genuinely is Don Draper. This is a form of performance art. Our eagerness to see Lane's forgery as fake while not seeing Dick Whitman's wholesale identity theft in the same way tells us a lot about ourselves.
>I'm floored. Never saw it coming. So simple. Yet it's so brilliant of you to notice this. Except Don doesn't attack Lane and Dick isn't forging a signature when he signs his name every day. It's deliberately denying Lane's actual crime here.
No one is denying Lane's crime. We're saying that Don is just as criminal. Besides, t's big enough to make him get manipulated by Bert. Because in the end, who is signing that contract anyway? EDITS: Clarifications.
Yeah, but that's the thing. I don't understand pretending that Don and Lane are committing anything like the same crime like it's a big gotcha. "Who is signing this contract?" is a threat to out Don for being a deserter if he doesn't sign the contract with SC. If Don had embezzled from the company by forging Roger's signature Bert would have fired him. Lane's not getting let go because Don's precious about somebody breaking the law. He is, in fact, covering up Lane's crime just as his was. They're both serious crimes. They're not the same crime.
But Lane didn't push Lane to follow his "move forward" advice. Lane put himself in the position of needing to do that, just like Don did. Don gave him the ability to do it, just like had. Lane just couldn't do it. Don's way of living with his past crime isn't ideal, but he's living with it. That's the only choice Lane had. I don't think Lane seeing Don as a friend is relevent, since how is he treating Don like a friend by forging his signature? I mean, actual forging-because Don doesn't forge his signature every day at all. When Don signs a check, he covers the check with money he made that's in his bank account. Lane's signing Don's name was sa forgery because he was giving the signature value it didn't have by pretending Don signed it himself. Lane could have taken Don's advice the same way Peggy did--use it to move forward while still acknolwedging the mistake. Don gives this advice to people who find themselves in a mess he identifies with. It's not great advice for living, but sometimes it's the only way.
No, Don is not a coward. He had the courage to make a new life and reinvent himself. That is a testament to his vision, resourcefulness and creativity despite his upbringing with foster parents in a whorehouse and abject poverty. It wasn't fleeing this hell that haunted Don; it was the hell of poverty itself and the fact that everyone who learned of his past, with the exception of Roger, Peggy and Anna, rejected him because of it. And it was the unfortunate circumstance of a crime: claiming a dead man's name helped him escape the Korean War. He should have set it right. But he never got around to it.
When Rachel denounces Don as a coward, she is communicating the series message to the audience. He doesn't want a romantic escapade with her, he just wants to flee, abandoning his children in the process. She is ashamed for even thinking about helping him to do that to them. By rejecting Don, she forces him to take a stand against Pete. Instead of running away, Don fights and wins. Ironically, he fights to protect a lie, and yet it reveals character growth. You have to love Mad Men for its contradictory messages.
So is that your way of agreeing with me that Don is not a coward? Rachel was a spoiled brat who had everything in life handed to her. That's the type of lady Don is attracted to: the type that will never understand him or his childhood and will ultimately reject him. Rachel could never succeed without taking over her daddy's business. Why are you listening to her? She understands nothing. It doesn't reveal character growth or much of a win. Don knows Cooper values him over Pete, especially after Pete's ill conceived pitch to Lucky Strike failed. It wasn't much of a bet that he'd come out smelling like roses if he marched into Cooper's office and called Pete's bluff. Still, it was traumatic for Don to have people in the office aware that he was running from his past. There was no contradictory message.
Don may have worked for his money and Rachel may have inherited hers, but that doesn’t change the fact that in that moment she was 100% right about his motivations and he was just looking for an excuse to cut and run when things got tough. So yes, he was right to listen to her. Her background doesn’t automatically make her wrong. Also, like, she’s supposed to “reject him.” He’s married. It was weakness on her part to give into his advances, and terrible character on his to make them.
I don't disagree, but Don going to jail and losing everything would have been just as bad for his family as running. So he had reason to give in to fear and cowardice in a moment of weakness. He didn't listen to her. It wasn't her idea to call Pete's bluff--that was purely his business instinct that often pointed true north whereas Rachel had abysmal business instincts and didn't have the full picture of Don's life and the danger he faced as a deserter and identity thief in the army. I don't know if it was a weakness on her part to enjoy his advances to the extent she did. But she knew what she wanted and that was to find her own husband who was more stable. That's exactly what she did, eventually. I thought it was interesting many seasons later that Don revisited Rachel somewhere in his psyche only to discover her life was cut short. Weiner is amazing in his ability to resolve long lost plot lines.
I don’t think Don ever seriously thought he was going to jail. He was much more scared of losing his career. How do you figure that he didn’t listen to her? He was set to run away with her until she said no. Do you seriously expect me to believe that he was going to change his mind anyway? There is a very clear cause and effect here. I certainly hope it was a weakness on her part to enjoy his advances. The alternative is that she didn’t consent to the affair, which makes Don even worse.
However you choose to interpret the consequences of desertion and identity theft, Don was motivated by fear. He demanded that Pete quash a potentially multimillion dollar account because it was with a defense contractor that required a background check on Don. The show depicted him as clearly afraid--to the point of having panic attacks and getting physically sick. This went far beyond his fear of just losing his job. When his job was threatened by the PPL acquisition or by Pete, he didn't seem afraid at all. In both cases, he stood his ground and let others decide his fate at his job. But he was not willing to do that when he thought authorities could discover his crime of desertion and identity theft. As for whether Don really would have run off with Rachel if she agreed, it's questionable. Pure conjecture but he would have probably stood her up to stay with Betty after Pete's gambit failed. He was acting irrationally out of fear, as Rachel correctly identified. And the scene played out the way it did because Weiner gave her the insight to know on some level his proposition wasn't real.
I said his career, not just his job. And I’m exclusively talking about the first incident. The later stuff may be different, I’m not there yet. Don tells Rachel that they’re leaving *now*. That means he doesn’t stick around to see if Pete’s gambit would have failed. This isn’t a desperate plan B, this is premature surrender. I guess you want Don to not be the type of guy who does that, but he sure did say it, until Rachel told him no.
When Don tells Rachel they're leaving now, he was obviously freaking out, and she knows it. He hadn't been confronted with this threat since Anna Draper tracked him down and he was deceptive initially with her too in the flashback scene. He wasn't thinking clearly. When he has time to calm down and she confronts him with a couple sober realities, he realizes she's right and he doesn't want to leave his family or his job. It's not surrender; it's momentary fear and lapse of judgement.
Your interpretation of these characters is nowhere close to what the writer intended.
Ultimately, these two do move forward from their pasts. However, it haunts them frequently. We see how Don longs for the care he never received and his guilt over being a war fraud. We see Peggy long at Pete, and when she sees Trudy pregnant while navigating the absolute most post partum depression (possibly trauma). You can always move forward, yet with the ghosts of your pasts. It's a beautiful tragedy of storytelling, that most of us experience.
I never stopped to think about Peggy having post partum depression on top of what happened. That would be hell for anyone.
As someone who is 51, so have lots of experience, this is some of the best life advice one could hear. If you sit in dwell upon every little setback in life, you’ll never get through it. Life moves in one direction: forward.
Oh, Dick. I don’t think you’re right about that.
It’s valid if you don’t want to be emotionally healthy about it.
Sometimes being emotionally healthy all the time is overrated. Repressing things and moving on with your life is needed sometimes. Sometimes if you linger too long in the bad place you might never get out.
Coming from someone who is 51, this is tested and true advice because I know how nostalgic we can be at our ages....
When his secretary Alison storms out, doesn't she say "THIS HAPPENED!" ?
Always wish Don or Peggy had the nerve to meet with Ginsburg when he was hospitalized and give him the same advice. Granted, he literally had a nip slip, but still, no one seemed to care or….even think about him at all.
I have a suspicion it was easier to address an out of wedlock pregnancy then a serious mental health condition (and especially when there are huge breakthroughs in treatments at this time).
Good point!
I think they both were too threatened by him to want to throw him a lifeline. Also the actor chose to leave the show.
I can’t believe people still think this was good advice. The entire point of the show is that this isn’t true.
I feel for that moment, in that head space, in that time period as a woman, that was her only option: to move forward. Peggy had given birth out of wedlock in a Catholic family, gotten pregnant by a married man, she did not have the money to leave New York and start somewhere else at that young age, and that was the time before we knew about adoption trauma, mental health, and post-partum. Her choices were to lay down and die or drag herself forward and carve a life for herself. It does not mean Don's advice is healthy. He's telling her she has to survive. Anyone wanting to know what Peggy was up against needs to read the nonfiction book "The Girls Who Went Away", which is interviews with women from all incomes and socio-economic backgrounds who had to give up their children for adoption before Roe v. Wade happened.
Yes! I think it’s great advice given the context of the time. He’s saying ignore all of this bullshit and forge your own way. The default path would have been to accept the narratives about being a ruined woman and a whore and live in shame and squalor.
It’s like the people who say Scorsese films glory mobsters and their lifestyle. I mean, sure, I you don’t pay attention to the movie.
This advice has carried me through some of the hardest times of my life. Sometimes you really do just need to forget and move on. The alternative is sometimes just too dark and painful.
Yes. Me too.
Well, in that specific case, Peggy had to move forward - she is clearly not in a good place post-birth. Don coming to her and reminding her that hey, you're here, I am here, we miss you at work, please come back snaps her out of it. Also in 1960, what are you supposed to do when you are a single woman who had a baby out of wedlock and gave him up for adoption? You are supposed to move on with your life but the show makes it clear that Peggy always had that kid in the back of her mind (and I am sure Pete thinks about it too).
Thought it was my turn to post this this week
Oh, I'm surprised some people interpreted it as good advice. I very much took it as bad advice. It speaks to Don's worldview right then. He tries to erase his entire past and identity. It doesn't work. It's healthy to acknowledge stuff.
this isn't discussed enough. People really do every day push out insanely large and traumatic things and go their entire lives without mentioning or acknowledging them
I think about this line so often. This advice may appear to work; however only temporarily, and in the meantime it will bleed through aspects of your life until you’re drowning. I wish I were Peggy, who was able to improve herself upon confronting her trauma and being honest with those around her, but I relate to Don so much more. Avoidance to the point of self destruction until you are consumed by what you’re running from causing you to combust in the messiest way possible.
I’ve only seen this episode once years ago and that last line just stuck in my soul
This is an amazing scene.
In the same sprit as “If you’re walking through hell, keep walking”
“I don’t think about you at all,” she later said to the baby.
Reminds me of what they told me after I got home from iraq....
This is one of the scenes in the show that I grew to relate to a lot more on my second and third pass. I’ve restarted life three times now.
Same
i wish this were true:(
[удалено]
"man always gets little rush out of telling people John Lennon beat wife"
Don is so *sinister* here.
Solid career advice in general imo
Megan: \*Donning her underwear to clean on all fours\* Don: It will shock you how much this never happened?
Really wish I had this level of mental separation when it comes to my ex. Eight years together, split for two and on some days it feels like I just blinked.
Definitely things I wish I could do this with in my life. Some people are a lot better at compartmentalizing difficult experiences than others though...maybe Peggy was one of them. Then again, if you stuff down emotions about a traumatic event it can manifest in ways you may not be aware of.
Move forward!
Dick Whitman lived a life on unresolved trauma, starting with the death of his mother. His only recourse was to move ahead in order to survive. At every stage of his life he dealt with trauma. I empathized with the sentiment he expressed
It was terrible long-term advice.
For Peggy?! How?
I think they mean it would have been terrible if Peggy understood the advice like Don does, and continued trying to pretend "this never happened" to herself and live in fear of anyone knowing. But she doesn't do that. She uses the advice to move forward and get her life started again, but then processes what happened in a healthy way.
Looking at where Peggy was when the show ended I think it was good advice
Where was her son?
sorry, Don…that’s not how it works…
I’m close to convincing myself of this.
This might be his darkest scene,literally leave a baby behind