Don certainly is a world-class liar. He can think up new material at the drop of a hat, depending on the audience and what he thinks they'll believe and buy. I don't approve and would never want a friend much less a husband like that - but it is in keeping with this character and afterall, the show's about advertising and isn't that what they do? Lie plausibly and pleasingly? Isn't one of the show's slogans, "where the truth lies"? a classic double-entendre.

I do like/want to like Don....but I must say that his inability to keep his mouth shut at times and his penis in his pants is starting to be too much. I think he needs to slow it down a little bit or he'll be worrying about an STI instead of high blood pressure.

Don hasn't changed. He is what he is. He stole a dead man's identity so why would he feel the need to tell his unstable wife about his blood pressure? His whole life is a lie so he has no reason to not do exactly what he wants to. He seems to have never felt love so he's empty inside. Tonight was certainly not the first time he's driven drunk-not that driving drunk was uncommon in the 60's anyway. The only difference I see in him is that he seems increasingly unhappy at home-so something may happen there. Hopefully, just words and nothing physical.

What do you mean, "has BECOME totally amoral"? He always was! To a degree. Don has some morals. Tonights episode (08/24) showed that, as he helped Peggy during her mental hospital incarceration. Considering the time period of the story (1962), I believe Don to be as moral as possible in his circle. He is not "pathetic," but a product of his era. Where were you in 1962?

i cannot stand DON DRAPER!!!! he has no clue on how to be faithful i mean his real name isn't even donald draper. he should have stuck with dick considering he's a big one. and i feel so bad for poor betty shes at home with the kids while he's out being a man whore. and whats up with that hippie chick in the village with her hippie friends? where did he find her at the subway station? bobbi was kinda likeable in "the new girl" im glad somebody gave pegs some good words of wisdom. and those men in that office are horrible they treat women so wrong but i guesss thats how it was in those days. personally i think betty needs to go out and have some fun.cshe totally should've hooked up with the ac guy last season. but ken cosgrove aint so bad either i think she should hit that. i think don deserves to have some other guy struutin around the office knowing he hit dons wife. or it would make me feel better. but yes i do detest don and wish he could keep it in his pants for like a second. i dont think i have loathed any other tv show character more than that man whore. i hope he wasn't made to be a likeable character. the fact that he is with multiple women is awful maybe if he had 1 chick on the side he periodically saw it wouldn't be as bad but he'll screw any hot female that moves.! married or single. keep it in your pants don...dick... who ever you are!!!

Wait wait wait!!!!!- Don's the Boss! He'll do what he wants!- lo. Secondly...Who's idea was it to goto the Beach? Bobbies!- Who was 'drinking up a storm' Bobbie!...Don is gulity of spending too much time with a Ho!- that's about it.

The Blood Pressure thing was Don's way of "Covering Up" WHY the accident happened!- He's fine! He knew Betty would 'buy it' so she let it go!...Notice she didn't ask "Where it happened"- good misdirection on Don's part with the Blood Pressure thing.

John Edwards is a million times worse than Don Draper!- lol and he has a 3,000 dollar hair cut!- lol.

Oh spare me. It's a show about advertising. Is there anything in the world more amoral than that. OK, maybe if you sold atom bombs to terrorists, but fundamentally advertising is amoral. LOVE DON DRAPER. He's a perfect whore with the perfect job for a whore.

Dennis:

There are decent people in adverstising.

He is the kind of man you love to hate and can't get enough of. As for his affair with Bobbi I thought it was quite clear all season that he wasn't interested, but felt pressured after dropping the ball at work and getting called out on it (episode 3) to do whatever it took to keep the client happy. He felt disgusted with himself after the first time and even washed his mouth out with soap before kissing his wife. Each time after that when he and Bobbi got together it was obvious he was thinking of the job and she initiated each encounter until last’s nights drive to beach. After seeing Rachael it all changed. He was saving himself for her and now he doesn't need to do that anymore. He headed willingly with her to the beach; though when he said he "didn't feel a thing" we knew that he was doing for reasons other than to be with her. I think we will now see Don actively pursue Bobbi and other women now that he knows Rachael is off limits. Are is she??

Peggy got it right: 'Don is exactly who he should be". I don't feel the need to determine his level of morality or lack there of, I don't care. He's a dark, brilliant, complicated, troubled soul who had me at "hello". I'm in it for the long haul. Tammy Wynette would be proud of me, because, after all, "he's just a man".

Totally agree with the sleaze bag which Don is turning into and losing the empathy of his audience. Last night I actually only could view 15 minutes of the show when he comes home to Betty who has been up all night, gives her a bullshit story, and then you find Bobbie who is a real piece of dirt involved in the accident and he is calling her at Peggy's to see how she is! I want more of Madison avenue story here, not Don and his latest piece of female garbage jumping into bed.

Totally agree with the sleaze bag which Don is turning into and losing the empathy of his audience. Last night I actually only could view 15 minutes of the show when he comes home to Betty who has been up all night, gives her a bullshit story, and then you find Bobbi who is a real piece of dirt involved in the accident and he is calling her at Peggy's to see how she is! I want more of Madison avenue story here, not Don and his latest piece of female garbage jumping into bed.

The repeating sequence of Betty waiting up for Don, getting angry, he coming in with a story to pacify her, and she ending up trying to comfort/take care of him, seems endless. He is a master manipulator and she is so painfully eager to believe him. The only way this situation will break is if Don's lying and cheating slaps Betty in the face. I thought the car accident last night would result in being that very slap of proof....she'd see Bobbi and Don at the hospital together. On top of that, she'd see the type of woman Bobbie is and go berserk!
I believe Betty would give Don an ultimatum and he'd acquiese. He needs Betty and would not let her go. On another note: I don't think Bobbie is a piece of dirt. She has some redeeming qualities, but she is trouble for Don.

I agree with you Tamara, I think Bobbi has redeeming qualities and is trouble for Don. The way she can cut you with a few words is rather Don Draperish. Didn't you want to slap Don when he made the remark to Rachel.."is Greg's (I think that was the agency name) still taking the credit for what we did?" He cut her quick and she just responded with, "he is all business". Rachel was being nice, but I think Rachel has been pretty nasty too. Rachel has more money than Bobbi the skank and viewers love her. She left him without even a goodbye and then pulled their account from him. Then she tops it off by shoving her new husband in his face as if to say, "see what I did - I CAN get married despite you thinking there is something wrong with me for being single". She knows Don is in love with her, why didn't she just look at him and go in a different direction? Why confront Don? To pour salt in the wounds? Not very nice if you ask me.

I think Rachel's father may have done the account pulling, after his call to Bert Cooper last season about why his daughter was "upset", and would be leaving for an extended cruise. Abe Menken probably stepped in and did what he felt was right. Never quite understood if Rachel was completely devastated and wiped out by the affair with Don or not. I guess going off on the cruise was supposed to be indicative that she'd "lost it" and had a minor emotional breakdown of sorts.

I think Rachel, when she saw Don, out of kindness and politeness, knew she had to acknowledge him. She seemed warm, but reserved. How else was she supposed to behave with her husband present? And, Rachel obviously wanted to acknowledge she'd seen Don, even with her husband in tow. If she'd really wanted to rub salt in the wound, Rachel could've blabbed on and on about how long they'd been married, their honeymoon, what her husband did for a living, etc, etc. She didn't. I still think she cared for Don, but it's over. There's nothing left for Rachel to say to Don, if anything, or do about him.

I posted this in another forum but I had to offer it as a response to the topic...

Don isn't a "sociopath." Or "amoral" He's a desperate, lonely person trying to make his way in a world that has failed him literally from birth.

Don doesn't believe in god and sees no order in the universe. He sees that big institutions on earth are not what they are advertised either -- whether it's the army that sends him to a fighting position that is certain death (2 guys to to the job of 22) to a WASP-y white shoe New York agency with that is considered "respectable" and actually revels in dumping clients "old business is just old business."

Don shows his view of the emptiness of institutions when he dismissively replies to his beatnik girlfriend's true love by telling him that there is no "establishment" to be blamed for society's ills. Don knows--he went looking for it as some kind of authority to give him direction. From obedient farmhand/whoreson ward, to army private, to his lovely suburban home complete with barbie wife, to Sterling Cooper, Don can't find a set of rules that doesn't turn out to fail him that isn't rife with hypocrisy and hopeless contradiction.

So he tries as best he can to use his will to make sense of the universe. His problem is that nothing works. His wife wants him to hit his kid as a sign that he cares about his family. His boss wants him to drop a trusted client to get a bigger client rather than to grow the first client through their work. And both are supported by society in those views.

But in his gut he knows they're wrong. That society is wrong.

He swings from trying on one set of rules to another as he sees they don't work, and in those moments of depressing clarity he wants to flee--to Paris, to the railroad tracks in Ossining, to a Stony Brook beach. All desperate, crazy subversive acts/desires. NOT sociopathic behavior akin to a Tony Soprano having sex with the one-legged polish cleaning lady. That's sociopathic self-indulgence.

And then when he is called on it by Rachel, he is ashamed of this desire to run. So he manfully submits to Pete's unmasking in front of Bert Cooper, like a man facing a firing squad -- and then ducks that bullet and goes on to try to service Betty and his clients as penance. But it doesn't stick.

Dick Whitman is desperate for answers. He found some of them in movies, with that "Teddy" from the fur company and other sources, to create the Don Draper character, but now he's reading poetry in bars and slipping away from the office to watch foreign films.

Roger Sterling is the decadent, immoral, bastard whose decline with women -- from husband to Sugar Daddy to straight paying client, mirrors Sterling Cooper's decline. Hate him if you want. But it's not easy, he's often pretty witty.

Don's thing with Bobbi starts as a disgusting bit of forced business-related whoring on his part, but as she chases him, he can't help but give in. The universe has no rules, Bobbi is the latest embodiment of this and at some point Don just stops fighting. And it has value to him. Straying from Betty releases the claustrophobic hold he's allowed her to place over him since the first season and allows him to perform in bed again.

Don't think his pain over Rachel isn't real. He regularly runs from pain into sensuality. He's not a "cold bastard." "I don't feel anything" he replies to Bobbi with a mix of anguish and disgust as he swigs the whiskey before the accident. This is not a man to envy or to hate. It is a man to pity and perhaps root for no matter how hopeless his journey may be.

He's reacting to a world, a society with the same blunt force it has battered him with from birth. But he's still staggering on, trying to find something better. He doesn't want to be like Bobbi, accepting that this is all there is.

Hamm is wonderful as usual. His eyes, after Rachel leaves Sardi's and when Bobbi starts nuzzling him before the accident, express so subtly the character's core emotion--his anguish, his self-loathing, and yet his desire for indefensible, off the cuff escape that he tries again and again to submerge--his daughter's claustrophobia-inducing birthday party desertion by the train tracks, the asking his beatnik girlfriend to go Paris in Season 1 after the bonus.

A man who can trust no one and lives with the terrible knowledge that we live in a godless, brutally random universe is always on the run, no matter what mask he wears. And that desire to run is hard to keep under control. It's all there in JH's performance -- just perfect in it's subtle shading.

I totally agree w/ you jamm. I think that rachel/don encounter closed the book on their relationship for good. Which is why I think Don seems to be plunging into a darkness w/ Bobbi as his accomplice. My perspective is that Don was living his life along side of Rachel's (like she mentioned on the rooftop in S1 when Don confessed to her he was married). Maybe waiting to bump into her in the city with the hope she was still available and then, like being splashed in the face with a cold bucket of water, to find out she's married, in a way has motivated him to be wreckless since he may feel he has nothing left to look forward to and the hope of something with her in the future is gone. It will be interesting to see where Don's current wreckless journey takes us til the end of the season. I love the character of Don Draper and I'm stunned at his actions too, but as Tamara said, he's dark, brilliant, a troubled soul and I'm drawn to that very much. I have no plans to abandon my appreciation for this complex character. I know this may be a wacky comparison, but I can't help but be in a trance when I watch Don...like looking into the eyes of Dracula...like I said, wacky, but just putting it out there. Ha!

I'm a HUGE Don Draper fan because, well, he's handsome and sexy as hell! I've no corny philosophical reason, like he's a "wounded boy" or whatever. Nah! Don's deep voice, big hands, lean body and that FACE keep me entranced! Plus, I'd rather watch paint dry than watch his feeble attempts at fidelity! Don must stay a manwhore to keep me watching the show!

I really don't give a damn about Peggy's kid or Pete's sperm or Roger's heart! But Don's ding-a-ling makes the show! LOL!

Don is not is amoral. He has a strong moral code manifested by senses of guilt and alienation. His actions are guided by an overall need to succeed in a competitive world of moral relativism. The story is a reflection of life.

Oops, I meant to type "Don is not amoral."

Don's behavior is getting increasingly reckless and risky. He's closer to the edge of losing control. Having a tryst with Bobbi for dinner and drinks at Sardi's - that's one thing. But drinking while driving all the way to her beach house so she coud "have him" on the sand - that's quite another...and we saw the result - total disaster (they both could have been killed).

Notice when he agreed to this...only after he'd seen Rachel and her nerdy husband Tilden Katz. Don's dreams of getting back with her one day are dashed. What the hell, why not give in to Bobbi, maybe she'll distract him from thoughts of Rachel. Until then he had been resisting her. The next thing we see they're in the car knocking back shots of whiskey straight from the bottle and she's kissing his neck while he drives with his eyes closed. So little regard for his own safety, his own future. High risk behavior from a high risk guy.

Bocaratonfan-your right. But don't you agree that Don's self-destructive behavior is a manifestation of guilt over his moral failures? A person with principles living an illustional life can control things only up to a point where guilt and despair take over.

Probably Don's biggest crisis in many ways comes from his crumbling philosphy/belief in advertising (buying what advertising sells will bring you happiness) and using it as a structure on which to base his whole life.

In several episodes he touted the strengths of advertising and its effect on people (advertising shows you what kind of life you want; tells you what will make you happy), and bought into hook, line and sinker. It had worked for Don for years (gave him the clothes, career, behavior, possessions, wife, home, etc), but suddenly he's hit a wall - because he's not happy, and he feels empty.

The job doesn't do it for him anymore (he's sure struggling there). The beautiful wife, home, 2 kids, glamorous job, etc, is not fulfilling just because he has those things. He doesn't have a positive experience/background from his past via parents, sibling or extended family to help him actually build a real life. So Don really is in crisis mode, but I would peg anyone with Don's survival tendencies to be able to rise like a phoenix out of the ashes and be reborn again (I'm not referring to religion). It'll be interesting to see exactly what he will choose to believe in.

Oh, and JimK, I just wanted to say that your synopsis of Don Draper is absolutely perfect! Everything you noted was true, and yes, Jon Hamm is wonderful in the role!

When Bobbi told Don she felt great and asked him how he felt and he looked at her as cool as ice and said"I dont feel anything".I was like uh-oh.This is a huge foreshadow.Psychotics don't feel anything and go through life doing all sorts of stuff in the quest to "feel" anything.Psychotics can lie,steal,cheat and kill without batting an eyelash.They also can be absolutely charming and charismatic with the opposite sex.I wonder if Don's appearance at Peggy's bedside is because he recognizes the same traits in her?

I am also curious if that baby may be his.I don't Pete was sweet lil ole "sugar wouldn't melt in my mouth" Peggy's first office fling.I think she is ready to do whatever and WHOMever to get ahead.

Jon Hamm A.K.A. Don Draper/Dick Whitman is a major league hunk!! I don't care where his story goes... I'm going with it!!

Hey, Mad_Maniac, you gave me a good laugh in another of your responses - I think it was why Don didn't get up when Bobbie came back to the table in the Lutece scene. "Umm, err,..." what a crack up!

If Don has any "feeling" for Bobbie, I'll eat my shorts. He is like zombie-man in response to her since the finger incident. Didn't the doc prescribe some kind of tranquilizer to Don at his physical? All I have to say is pills/booze are really creating a dysfunctional "Zombie Don". Wonder if that will ever come up in the storyline?

Hey Jamm it seems very little is "coming up" for Don..heh heh heh

I know, I think the next episode is going to be "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down", if I'm not mistaken.

has Become amoral? did i miss the part where he was moral? was that in a season that hasn't aired? he's the poster boy of amoral!

Well maybe if Don's "lucky" somewhere in the '60s he'll run into Cynthia "Plaster" Caster and be preserved for immortality in plaster before it's too late!

No, moto62, you didn't miss anything. I don't think Don was writing his "morality play" since the series started!

Don will still be amoral until Betty knocks some sense into him. Right now in the season, I think that Don doesn't care if he lives or dies. Betty needs to get Don some help.

I totally agree that Don has become self-destructive. People who experience a lot of tragedy and disappointment in their life create situations that cause more tragedy and disappointment. He's thinking, "Why wait for the ship to sink? I'll grab an ax and start making a hole in it myself!"

Oddly enough, he does (or in the past has had) a sense of honor and right/wrong when it comes to business. He really values loyalty (it almost killed him to blow off the minor airline company in favor of the larger possible client). He doesn't like people going behind other people's backs (putting down Pete's sneaky plans). He also stood up for Peggy when Pete tried to hit on her on her first day - he told Pete he'd never get ahead by being slimy and unlikeable. His morality obviously doesn't filter into his personal life very much, but he does try to be a good business man.

I'd really like to discuss the gender roles of this show, as I see it as much more than a soap opera. It is an amazing look into the changing social mores in our history! Look at the way that Peggy is changing... From a niave girl to a confidant of Don's... trying to find her place in a man's world. The country was on the verge of social upheaval... Women's roles were changing and you see in Peggy an example of this. For Don, I find it striking that he is drawn to strong women and is very accepting of allowing women a role (however limited) in business, yet he is also torn by this and his desire to keep women in their place (hence the womanizing and in Episode 1-- comments about Rachel- "no woman is going to talk to me that way!) Society didn't change overnight, and you won't see people changing immediately either. I think Don is a great example of how men were forced to change as the roles of women changed. Its just a great show!

Wow! Cracking up at all the psycho babble on Don. Just have to say that this is a good sign for the writers. They have done an excellent job of creating and developing Don's character in a way that keeps everyone wondering, hating , loving, lusting, envying, and all kinds of emotions his character is stiring up!
I for one can not get enough! I don't love him or hate him personally, but I love to watch and listen to his every move! He's one of the most interesting characters I've seen on television in a long time! Keep it coming!

Don is a hot mess right now

lol@Real Deal.

What's also been kind of swept aside is Don's physical, and already being informed that he's a walking future candidate for a heart attack.

Don's only 34-36? That would take the wind out of any guy's sails in that time period - it's a death sentence. It's would be hard for him not to have the attitude of "my life is over, who cares, I'm going to die anyway, f--k it" when you get that diagnosis.

The medical treatment for heart disease is still in baby stages, and no real corrective surgery or drugs to help (maybe lasix, coumadin unless that's the latter half of the 60s).

Yeah...if Don's "issues" continue, he's pry gonna hang himself in his garage...sad thought

I think he'll just drink and smoke himself to death. Add on the hypertension of the line of work he's in (and it is intensely rough as quite few posters who have been in the business will tell you), and you've got a winning combination!

Sorry additionally comment. Don's doing his "suicide" the slow way: alcohol, cigarettes, piled on stress, suppression of feelings. His heart will simply burst - he's trying to hold everything back and numb himself, but I don't see Don as the direct suicidal type (gun, cliff jumping, etc).

I'm not sure "morals" are the best judge of a person's worth. And there is a very big difference between AMORAL and IMMORAL.

I agree Don is engaged in a slow decline and is exhibiting more and more weakness. And weaker people are also generally "immoral" people, depending on how you define that word. So in a sense, he's starting to move from AMORAL to IMMORAL. But really, judging by "morals" is not very persuasive or meaningful because everyone's idea of what is "moral" differs.

In a way, being AMORAL may actually be a good thing and is ultimately more meaningful than calling someone moral or immoral because you use more objective standards of worth, value, effectiveness, benefit to society. Whether a person is strong v. weak or effective v. ineffective, or some other standard, none of which are completely objective granted, are far be more meaningful and would ironically lead to more "moral" decisions/behavior than using MORALITY as the standard.

Let's not confuse "amoral" with "immoral." They have different meanings.

"Amoral" refers to a person without a conscience or lacking a sense of right and wrong. The term usually applies to psychopaths or sociopaths.
"Immoral" describes behavior which violates accepted ethical norms, whether religious or societal. A person can be immoral without being amoral. Most of us do immoral things with the knowledge that they are wrong.

Don Draper is a self-reflective man with a keen sense of right and wrong. His behavior is compelled by a primordial need to succeed in a highly competitive marketplace, both economic and human. Unlike Roger Sterling, who is a sleaze and probably amoral, Don's moral code has produced a profound sense of guilt and alientation leading to his destruction. Don is immoral, not amoral.

jamm, you did it again - pointing out that the doctor, in effect, told 36 yr old Don that he's gonna be a Roger in ten years or less. Don is fatalistic now - he thinks: oh hell, i'm depressed, let me sulk alone in a dingy bar, be further humiliated while trying to mount my wife, try to act the settled married man for a while. Then: get a grip, you can make this go away, this diagnosis never happened, I will stop thinking about it. But in the mean time, let me just live it up the way I used to, until my blood vessels constrict and clog completely.

Not to be a rhetorical pain in the ass, but amoral isn't at all synomous with psychopath. Indeed, it has more to do with not letting subjective moral standards define or guide something or someone.

Here's the Merriam Webster definition

1 a: being neither moral nor immoral; specifically : lying outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply b: lacking moral sensibility
2: being outside or beyond the moral order or a particular code of morals

So amoral is neither good nor bad, just like science. It's just not guided by moral customs.

Don, if he weren't so weak/damaged right now, could be amoral and make amoral, albeit selfish, decisions that overall aren't bad or hurtful and are actually beneficial and make him a worthy person.

Sorry for the semantics, not that I'm amoral per se, but it's not always "good" to get too bogged down in emotional subjective feelings about immorality when making decisions or conducting oneself. Because one person's immorality (e.g., being gay, gambling, war, divorcing, having an abortion) is another person's right or wise decision.

thanks, bocaraton. I'm going by my own father's experience of having a massive heart attack at 41 (in 1967) and barely surviving, and being told he'd probably had another around 33, if not more. When the doctors went to do open heart surgery (very risky then), he had an aneurysm the size of a fist on his heart muscle. So, even though the surgery was going to be a bypass (a biggie in those days), the heart muscle was so damaged they just cut out the aneurysm and sewed him back up.

He was really a candidate for a heart transplant which was still in the experimental stages at that time. But, the effect of that on a young man is overwhelming. It changes everything because you're looking at your own imminent mortality. My dad died 9 years later at 50.

Plus, for Don, you add in Rachel's judgment of him as a coward - coming from someone he trusted, opened up to, and then lost? That's pretty devastating, and his guilt over Adam's suicide? People do die of a broken heart - it's been proven now, believe or not. There's some kind of change in your chemistry that affects the heart! Wild, huh?

Jamm it's true, a broken heart can kill!

bettycrocker, you are right. Amorality is not psychopathy. It is, however, a hallmark of sociopathy. The sociopath believes that rules don't apply to him - they don;t exist. But he will use those rules againt the rest of society, which believes in and tries to follow them. He thinks they are fools.

That said, I also don't think Don's amoral. In my prior post, at the top of this topic, I called Don a liar. So he is. But liars are not all amoral. Often they are acutely aware of, actually believe in, and often try to follow, a moral code. Personal failing, selfishness and weakness cause them to resort to lies when they feel threatened, or when telling the truth would result in the loss of something they don't want to give up.

Pj, in a post above, rightly pointed out Don's guilt. Pj is right. The amoral don't feel guilt. The immoral usually do - though they may never admit it.

Don has major guilt, I feel, over one thing - Adam's suicide. He never felt guilt over his infidelities, but he sure does feel the guilt over his half-brother.

Much of Don's behavior, I think, comes from a lot of guilt. He may feel guilty that his birth resulted in his biological mom's death. He may feel guilt that he's the son of a "whore" and "whoremonger." He stole a dead man's identity, enormous guilt. He probably feels bad that he drove away Rachel, the one person he could open up to about his origins, with his nutty panic. Of course, there was his baby brother's suicide.

Some of that is Don brought on himself (Rachel, Adam), but I can't help feeling sorry for a guy who was brought up in the kind of environment where he's the town's "whorechild."

Boca...you're right. I just meant in that "Venn diagram" sense of definitions...all sociopaths are amoral, but not all amoral people are sociopaths."

I do think guilt is a very overused and destructive emotion and most decisions should be made without the influence of guilt. And trying to define your life by the subjective definition of morality is a prescription for a life driven by guilt.

That's what I meant by sometimes, decisions made AMORALLY are often as "good" as decisions made by some moral code (and sometimes more so because they become objective good).

I laughed BettyCrocker when you wrote "most decisions should be made without the influence of guilt". I want to live in that world!

You're right, but as I look back on most of my decisions of "doing right" because of a sense of guilt, the repercussions backfired against me over and over! LOL. Maybe that's what's happening to Don. Doing right by others or doing right by yourself is pretty tricky business. How far over the line can you stray either way without inflicting too much harm on someone or yourself? And stay sane and whole?

Visan & Betty Crocker: in thinking about Don's "guilt" and all the reasons for it from his past, doesn't it make sense, then, that he has formulated an almost extreme "moral code" in business?

Don had very definite ideas of right and wrong in business. It seems like this season, though, he's had to compromise his right/wrong codes many times. Business seemed to be the last, or maybe only, area where he practiced it religiously. Now, his last set of moral/ethics codes (business) seem to be in a shambles. He has no real definitive code left to guide him. Does that make any sense? Maybe that's also why he's flailing around so much in advertising these days.

bocaraton, I have to correct myself. My dad's 1967 heart attack is correct, but the heart surgery didn't take place until 1972.

In 1967, there wasn't any surgery for heart attacks that I know of, except keeping the patient in the hospital for 3 weeks for monitoring. It's a miracle my dad survived. When they were finally trying "bypass" in 1972 it was a very, very new and risky 14+ hour surgery with no guarantee of survival.

So, Don's diagnosis in 1962 is a potential death sentence. Don is 36 to my dad's 37 in 1962. Also would depend on Don's family history (heart disease runs in my dad's family with deaths at 41, 48, 50, 51, 57).

Thanks Ritt, you've given me hope that maybe the lovely Rachel will appear again some day (I hope so!!!).

Don never was a pillar of morality. Everybody knows that going in. He does many things because "That's what people do." Which is why he was sympathetic to Pete about his father and why he was giving advice to Peggy at the hospital.

Does he tell Betty all his troubles and past? Hell, no. He's very controlled and doesn't want her thinking less of him. Furthermore, he only mentioned his blood pressure problem because it would be a contributing factor to the accident. No way would he want to mention he'd been out drinking with a client's wife, especially not in a controlled environment. If he hadn't had the accident, he might never have mentioned it. It's a sign of weakness in his opinion.

As far as Rachel is concerned, she didn't really have a choice about not greeting him at Sardi's once they'd seen one another. If Tilden found out later who Don was, he'd wonder why he hadn't been introduced. And possibly suspect the worst. I guarantee Rachel's never mentioned her relationship to Don to Tilden.

As far as Rachel being out of the picture... That's up to M Weiner & Co. Right now Maggie Siff has only time for a cameo which brought the viewers up to date on what happened to her. If the show she's currently in tanks, well... Papa Menken won't live forever.

I do think Don is a moral character. It's just that loyalty to family, marriage, loving someone are alien to him. But he does have a moral code. For some reason, Dick Whitman needed to die and so Don killed him. I think something happened to, because of, or within Dick Whitman that was so disturbing Dick volunteered for Korea (a death wish, maybe), possibly had a breakdown and/or suicide attempt and spent time on a mental ward (which is why he came to Peggy and gave her the advice he did; he'd been there too). I don't understand his abandonment of Adam or his payoff of 5 Grand but wonder if Adam remembered something Don never wanted too. I think he sent that book with it's very meaningful poem to someone we haven't seen yet. I think his relationships with Midge, with Rachel, his foreign films, the poetry, are all attempts to find some truth, some beauty, something to make him feel alive. He's a slick, handsome, carefully plotted advertisement of a successful man but the paper is starting to rip.

I'll have to say, Don forgetting to pay back Peggy the bail money was pathetic. I can't believe he would conveniently forget and make Peggy ask for her money. She made it clear to him at the Police Station that she struggled to come up with only $110, instead of the $150 he needed for the fine. He made it sound like it was an oversight, but I don't think it was. I think he expected her to donate her money to the Don Draper Drunk Driving Fund.

There was a really nice man here in town. He and his wife raised a nice family. A hard worker and a church goer, neighbors and coworkers spoke well of him. He turned out to be the notorious bike path rapist who terrorized our community for over twenty years and killed at least four women.. An extreme example, I know. Not all sociopaths are depraved criminals. Don Draper is a sociopath. He has no conscience. He sees human beings as objects to be used and discarded. It's okay to analyze him and what made him the man he is (Betty: "Would you be the man you are if your father didn't hit you?") but we can't protect ourselves from this type of unfeeling personality if we don't acknowlege it exists.

Don has too much guilt and anguish, I think, to be a sociopath or psychopath. He wouldn't experience any guilt or remorse from his actions whatsoever, if he was. The guilt/remorse is indicative of a person who has a sense of right and wrong, I think. But I'm not a mental health specialist either.

You don't need to be a mental health specialist to heed your fear. Don is scary. Rachel saw what he is and ran. What you see as guilt and anguish, I see as self pity. He repeats the same selfish behaviors over and over again. People who have a sense of right and wrong don't treat loved ones the way he treats Betty. The revenge he exacted on Roger was diabolical. He is good in an off-handed way to his kids because they are now too young to threaten him, but he coldly planned to jettison them and run off with Midge or Rachel. Paris with Midge, or San Francisco with Rachel? He didn't really have a preference because these women mean nothing to him and neither does his family.

Twiggy you call Don selfish. What about the deplorable way in which SAB treats her children, always bitchin' about Sally's weight and emasculating Bobby? She's an asshole to her kids!!

Okay, Twiggy, I can see your point, and they're very good ones.

If it's self-pity, Don has violated his own code of no past, no self-pity (remember him chiding Betty for her sadness over her mother's death; telling Peggy to stop crying over the dismissals of maintenance staff due to her complaints because she was "feeling sorry for herself").

I'm not sure that it is self-pity on Don's part. Self-loathing? Yes. Feeling sorry for himself? I don't know yet. I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Don is just playing out someone else's life, so what the hell? So far, every time he's pulled the handle, he wins the jackpot: gets the new name, gets the major career, the beautiful wife...home...kids. But he can't stop there! He continues on and on, taking the risks. He didn't like Midge's TV set...yet that's how he seems to view his life unfolding...like it's happening to someone else in a show.
Don acts as though he's been given a death sentence with 6 months to burn through the rest of days so the issue of morality is moot.
The guy falling through the sky in the beginning credits of this show is definitely Don!

Yeah, Jon Hamm, in audio commentary has said "there I am - falling".

Don is not a sociopath. You can see him experiencing anguish and remorse, even if he's not emoting it. Everything is written on his face. Jon Hamm does an incredible job. It just made me think of Russell Crowe in the "The Insider" - he also said volumes without opening his mouth. That is fine acting. Don just doesn't know what to do with his pain, hence all the self-destructive behavior. We all do that to some degree. And who can he admit his pain to? He felt safe enough with Rachel to begin, perhaps, breaking his shell, but how long would Don be able to tolerate being loved? Rachel was capable of loving him for who he is and he isn't much of a fan of himself, to put it lightly. It wouldn't have lasted long between them. It takes some people years, or a lifetime, to heal from the kind of damage he suffered as a child. In TV time, he's moving along- forward and backward- at a pretty realistic pace. Wish I could give him a hug and a cup of hot cocoa...hehehe. But who do you think the woman will be that he opens up to again? Bobbi would use his vulnerability against him. Hope it's not her.

Visan--she's not an asshole to her kids! I remember a very similiar incident when I was 6 and my brother was 3 and my mother was fed up trying to get my father to be a man and a dad and pay SOME attention to us. I forgave her for it and so did my brother because we endured his emotional neglect too. I'm betting the writer/writers who did that scene knew it was realistic for the time. My mother washed us, fed us, toilet trained us, read to us, went to every little play and school function, waited up for us, cried and worried for us, and she had our absolute loyalty. My brother died while still a young man and she's the one I talk with about him cause she's the one with the memories, not my father. The writers do a brilliant portrayal of suburban life. Betty is absolutely loyal to Don and so has no one to blow off steam too. She keeps it all inside. When I got married Mom told me to never tell anyone our personal married troubles, it was disloyal to the marriage. Sorry, Mom, if the old man's an asshole, tell him, tell his mom, tell the world, then walk. Thank God it's 2008.

@Catt....You and me are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I find SAB to be an asshole and complete nag as a character. Nothing anyone says can make me change my mind on that one!

I don't get into posters' personal lives, as that is none of my business.

Catt: I'm with you! I've never spanked my own kids, but I got my share back then, and so did my little friends. My father was ALWAYS gone and my mother had to be Mom AND Dad to three little kids.
Betty is under pressure being married to an A-hole
but still manages to feed, pamper and sleep with the idiot. How dare Don embarrass her with his degrading comments on the swimsuit! Betty should just strut her stuff and if Don doesn't like it, he can shoot himself in the foot.

Don is alienated from his wife and kids and everyone he comes into contact with as he has no ethics or values. The world hasn't done him in. The writers have created a chracter who chooses to do all these things and they are taking us along with them as they learn the consquences of this behaviour. Don is going to crack up, fall apart, have a crisis of some sort. The car crash wasn't enough. Having high blood pressure isn't enough. It's going to be huge. I am totally sucked in as to what is going to destroy him and whether he will survive it. Maybe the truth about Peggy's baby coming out? That would blow apart his marriage, his job and his devil-may-care ethics.

Jolie10: I agree totally. I have loved Don no matter what, but his comment to Betty about the swimsuit was the last straw. I completely lost any affection I felt for his character. Betty looked just darling in that suit. He could have masked his jealousy by telling her that she looked so good that he couldn't stand the thought of any other man seeing her. I was so furious with his comment that I wanted to kill him. What an A-hole. Now I hope he goes down in a huge way. I've never understood why a man would want to possess a woman that he doesn't really want but I have certainly seen it enough in real life. I noticed that Don's interest in Bobbie began to wane when he found out that she was a mother. Just like with his own wife. I think he only sees women as madonnas or whores.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black when Don tells Betty SHE is desperate! I have had sympathy for Don all along but tonight he fell far down in my opinion. For the first time I feel desperate for him to get a fricking grip on reality! Bobbi shoved a little reality in his face over his reputation and he freaked. Yes, Don, you are like Bobbi, only she doesn't live in denial about it.