I think Mad Men is a beautiful show with many layers. Some of the best moments in the show are the simple statements, the looks, and glares. More is said with a glance, than words, and that's what I truly appreciate about this show... they let you enter their minds and extrapolate what you feel they're thinking.
The Rejected is an episode about relationships, and it had a real deep, desirable feel to it.
There may be a couple of parts here referenced in the show, but I don't consider them to be spoilers.
Peggy is mad at Pete for finding out from another secretary that Pete's wife is pregnant. She confronts Pete without saying how she feels, but a feeling of rejection is sensed. Later the music queue's when they change a hard look in the lobby. Very intriguing moment. I felt bad for the loss of what could have been between the two of them; and I felt a sense of the door shutting on their past.
That moment was followed up with an equally captivating moment when an elderly gentleman repeatedly asks his apparent wife (who's walking down the hallway after returning from the store) if she got the pears... Draper is opening the door to his apartment and he pauses to look at them as they go into their apartment.
"We'll discuss it inside", the man's wife says.
Don is choking on multiple emotions. I feel bad for how lonely and desperate his life has become. Earlier he wanted to write a note to his secretary, but he's above that, so he disregards it... more repressed feelings. Is he really the man he thinks he is, where is he going, where will he end up? Will he ever grow old with someone, like his neighbors have, and will he ever care about anything the way that old man seems to care about his pears.
There's a subtle beauty in the simple, brief moment we see that elderly couple. She may go to the store daily, and he may ask that same question repeatedly every time she returns, but where would their lives be without those simple moments? I feel that's what's going through Don Draper's mind. He feels the old man is annoying, but at the same time he is envious because the old man has someone and has been able to hold onto that special someone for a long time. Maybe one day he'll treat women decent enough to where he could be the man awaiting his loved one and asking, honey, did you get the pears?
This episode made me cry in the end.
