I think Dennis is playing the game. He's apparently an average guy that spends mast of his time in the presence of criminals and doesn't ever rub shoulders with high powered tycoon types. However in the waiting room he shared a common bond with Don and felt of Dons natural instinct to be compassionate with a fellow worried father. Dennis probably withdrew a return nod or gesture to avoid having to go into detail with his wife about any conversation he would have had with Don thus showing his wife a frailer side of himself.

MAD MEN is a splendid combination of intrigue in the lives of individuals , places , and times. It reminds me of a book i read in the 60's called THE F CERTIFICATE. It has fresh ideas intertwined with reality checks, set in a scene of the early 60's when social graces took a back seat to common terms involving race, sex, and saying it like it is. This is definitley a series worth watching. JOHNNYMAC

Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong, but on the third viewing it looked like Dennis's wife did NOT have a baby in her arms when they passed Don.

It could be that the baby had developed something and was being kept in the hospital for a while. But if MM runs true to form, we may never know...

Dennis was embarrassed by his tearful fearful self, released by the scotch. His character is there to remind Don that he still has some changing to do. Both literally and figuratively!

I've only watched the episode once so far, but it was hard for me to see Dennis' wife clearly when they passed in the hall. They wheeled past Don incredibly fast and the focus seemed to be more on Dennis' awkward/uncomfortable facial expression. I thought I did see the baby briefly.

I agree that Dennis was extremely embarrassed about getting emotional and vulnerable in front of Don. He probably considered his behavior "unmanly" and "weak" due to the rigid standards for men back then. I thought it was touching actually, how he felt inspired by his child's birth to try and improve himself as a person. Dennis was clearly meant to be a "mirror" for Don.

Oh...I thought Dennis' wife was grimacing...like crying. And so I figured the baby died. She did not have a baby in her arms...and why was he wheeling her down the hallway if she had just had a baby. She should have been in bed. I watched that scene twice...guess I need to watch it again.

At first I thought Dennis not acknowledging Don was because the night of the births was all "a fog." Dennis didn't recognize Don. Would Don have recognized Dennis if it weren't for the uniform?

But I just watched it frame by frame and I have a different take. It appears Dennis maintained eye contact with Don but didn't say anything to Don, which perplexed Don. I also think Dennis and his wife were smiling - probably on their way to the nursery to see their son. I've heard/read all the theories that their son died, or that they were TOLD he died (and given to Don and Betty because their baby girl died), but I don't think that's the case.

Dennis and his wife were smiling as they first came down the hallway; I thought they were headed for the nursery. If she was grimacing as they passed, remember she had a C-section, painful at any time and probably even more so in the 1960s than now, or so I'm told from my sisters who had them in the 1980s. Jostling along in a wheelchair would hurt.

My take was that for all of his confessions to Don and his promises to be a better man for his wife,
Dennis had aleady failed in some way, had already fallen back into his old ways and when faced with Don, who had acted as his idol for the night, he was immediately face to face with his denial and failure, hence the strong reaction, almost of shame.

I guess we were to appreciate that this younger man sort of looked up to Don, in the brief time they were getting to know one another.

And we the audience know that Don is probably not the best father out there.

When Don answers Dennis, "Not enough...."

I said aloud: "Not at all!"

the corridor scene is very quick. i looked at it again, this time frame by frame.
dennis and the mrs. were both smiling, his smile was broader. she had no baby with her. that alone means nothing. they could be going or coming from the nursery. maybe the baby couldn't be brought to the room. babies are only with the mother constantly before the birth.
don smiled at dennis. dennis dropped his smile on recognizing don. than lowers his head . in shame?
some had good explanations. but i can't see that anything is wrong with their baby. as i say the scene goes by fast, it needs to seen again to catch it.
thanks for the insight

The waiting room is it's own fog/limbo area. Like prison, all that you do there is wait. And as in a prison (or confessional), when two men find themselves in such limbo, they face things about themselves that they wouldn't otherwise; confess and discuss them. Very much like Betty confesses truths to herself that she has denied as she wanders in her fog.

Don does, indeed, become the wise elder, the "king" of that little prison of theirs, and Dennis exposes a lot of himself to Don--stuff that he obviously has never exposed to his wife. He tells us, in fact, that he makes an effort to keep all such intimacies form her.

But like Betty, when a man or woman steps out of that fog, out of the cell or confessional, they want to forget what happened in there; they want to forget how vulnerable they were, how out of control, what they discovered about themselves, what they admitted. So Dennis looks away from Don. And Don, who felt fatherly toward Dennis, is a little hurt by this, though perhaps he understands. Dennis is back to being husband and father, king of his little kingdom, and he doesn't want to be reminded that he was anything less for the hours that he was in that room.

wow thirteen. great explanation.

Whoa, amazing insight, Thirteen. Perfect. That's precisely how I think the meaning of the title "The Fog" should be interpreted. Wish I had the skill to say it as articulately as you did.

I've seen this phenomenon IRL. People often do this kind of psychological unburdening and bonding thing when in an intensely stressful situation with other people they know they're probably never going see again. Creating a temporary intimacy that has a definite expiration date. Such as on a plane that's having serious turbulence. In a hospital. During 9/11 here in New York. Soldiers during war. Etc. Then if they do see that person again, or something that reminds them of the event, they feel really vulnerable and exposed because that whole situation was supposed to stay put in that "fog".

I agree with thirteen but I would add the connotations that men in intimate, revealing conversations with each other (instead of women) might have created significant psychological discomfort at that time in history. I would think discomfort would be intensified for a prison guard who is required to maintain a masculine persona or be killed. There was the whole theme about the marginalization of men during the birth process. While they had to give legal permission for the medical procedures from the margins of the hospital (waiting room). The legal aspect objectifies the wife as property which is distancing and she is distanced from her own experience through demerol.

Thirteen... oh well put! You are in your usual top form.. I so enjoy your posts.

BlueGirl...nice additions!

If nothing else, I would have expected the guy to ask about Don's baby. Could he really have been so uncomfortable to use a socially expected and polite reference considering they both were waiting for a birth? Getting drunk sharing a bottle of scotch, smoking cigs and talking about being fathers while waiting is too much intimacy? Wow...that's inept. I mean, I can't imagine not asking.
Watching this whole episode I thought it seemed like a lot was pretty straight-forward--not a lot to really analyze too deeply.
The two times I've had surgery and they put me on pain meds I hallucinated both times--I mean off-the-wall weird things that really meant nothing relating to my real life. It was just like Betty's weird associations. And the dream involving her parents and Evers seemed very plausible considering she is giving birth to her child, she just lost her father, she has conflicting feelings being a child and a mother, and Evers just having been murdered.
Big question though--why was it chosen to not show the couple with their baby? Another mislead to add intrigue most likely. It sure makes us wonder about that baby.

another thread on same topic
http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/talk/2009/09/don-and-the-pri.php

Dennis' wife is staying at the hospital longer than Betty because she'd lost a lot of blood in the breech delivery and had to have a transfusion. As the nurse told Dennis, both mother and baby were fine. No real problem, just letting the new mama gain her strength before going home.

BTW, I looked it up. It's "breech" not "breach." Homonymns can be confusing.

fanofmad wrote: "Could he really have been so uncomfortable to use a socially expected and polite reference considering they both were waiting for a birth? ... I mean, I can't imagine not asking."

The answer to your question is, yes, he could have been so uncomfortable. ;-) Different time, different world. In our modern world where "bro-mances" are popular movies, men are much more comfortable with revealing themselves. A modern guy likely would have smiled, waved and said, "Hey! All well with your wife and baby?"

But as we see, there was a strong belief back then that you kept certain things hidden from others, and that worked it way down the line. Starting at the top, Men did not burden other men with confessions of personal vulnerabilities though they might bitch about work to each other. But they wouldn't confess either personal vulnerabilities or work problems to their wives (like Dennis keeps his work form his wife). And both men and women kept things from children, like Betty and Don keep the funeral from Sally, and Dennis mentions that he's going to have to hold back on exposing any of his problems to his new son.

There is a lot in this episode about being at the top of the food chain--about being "king." Heavy is the head that wears the crown. As one "king" to another, Dennis feels free to unburden himself to Don. But once out, he can't look at Don because he did cross that first, invisible line that says, "Don't confess personal vulnerabilities to another man."

That, by the way, is why Priests existed. So that there was someone a man could confess such things to, a father figure or elder. And that is rather how Dennis views Don while they're in that room, but not once he's out of it and with his wife, who he made that confession about (that he wasn't as good a husband to her as he ought to be). As bluegirl aptly put it, it's easy to be intimate with a stranger you think you'll never see again. But then, when you do see 'em, it's uncomfortable. Make that even more so back then, especially if the strangers were men and one of them was with his wife.

Hi Thirteen,
I enjoy all your introspective posts, and appreciate the explanation of your response to my rhetorical question...but I wanted to comment on one thing.
You removed the essence of my point by partically quoting me.

*this part*:

"Getting drunk sharing a bottle of scotch, smoking cigs and talking about being fathers while waiting is too much intimacy? Wow...that's inept."

My point was WHAT INTIMACY? (And I still say, how inept) It just felt like two drunk guys and "bar talk" level of conversation.
Of course it's just my perception and I still appreciate that it could have been too much for this guy, but more so considered something else was going on instead.

Hey, Fanofmad--I edited it out to try and shorten the length of the post (like that worked ;-D). Actually, Dennis revealed an awful lot about himself; consider how he yelled at the nurses, showing Don that he was in a blind panic, scared something horrible would happen to his wife, and at the end where he promises to be a better man, implying that he hasn't treated his wife as well as he ought.

Which doesn't make it any different from two guys in a bar. As said, sometimes you can admit things to a stranger that you can't to someone you know, and that most often happens in bars while talking to the guy next to you or to the bartender, right? I doubt that Dennis would ever admits to his guy friends on bar night that he sometimes worries about something awful happening to his wife, or that he doesn't do well enough by her. They'd likely feel uncomfortable with him if he did.

In the end, maybe he didn't reveal much (though Don is pretty savvy), but he certainly thought he did, and that's all that really matters. What we think is too intimate to say to anyone, friend or stranger, varies person to person. For Dennis, what he said in the waiting room may well have been far too much even if it didn't seem so to you or even to Don.

I've only watched the scene once, but my initial reaction was that Dennis seemed somber, so I was afraid that he and his wife were leaving without the baby because something sad had happened...although they were heading in the opposite direction from Don and Betty. I'll watch it a million more times this week and look carefully.

I did rewatch this scene. Dennis's wife was smiling and Dennis seemed a bit embarrassed when he encountered Don.

I was surprised when I did not see the baby.
My instinct says they lost the baby and that Dennis
somehow found that embarassing and wanted to forget the whole hopeful encounter with Don.

"You will be amazed how much this never happened."

So true, again and again.

In a breech birth, particularly during that time, a whole lot can go wrong. Dennis had to wait quite a while, and in many such circumstances, the baby may have ended up with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck or lost oxygen due to the cord being compressed, especially if the amniotic fluid (water) is broke and already gone.

Doctors use C-section as a last resort, and they likely would have tried a number of different procedures before resorting to it, and since the delay seems to have been a number of hours (enough time for Don and Dennis to just about polish off a 26 oz bottle of Johnnie Walker), Dennis' child may have either been stillborn or born with confirmed physical/mental defects.

Dennis trusted Don, and Don promised him that everything was going to be okay. Dennis even told Don he knew him to be an honest man and so trusted Don's word. If everything was not okay, then Dennis would feel betrayed and lied to, or at the very least that Don had let him down. Dennis would also feel ashamed because he could clearly see that Don and his wife and his baby were all great while he and his wife are now faced with an immense tragedy.

Just my two cents.

Hi USA
The episode has just been on in the UK - thanks so much for a fantastic series.
Having stood around three times on the "shore" while my wife was in the "boat" - I think I understood this beautifully played scene. The promises you make to God, to your self and, in Dennis's case to Don, are sincere at the time. Dennis does intend to be a better man - a fair exchange for everything to be okay for his new born son and for his wife's survival. But in the time that's passed since the birth the good intention has given way to reality. Dennis has failed to change - no doubt the prisoners at his jail will give testimony to that. He's betrayed the promise he made and is leaving the hospital with a smiling wife and (as was the way back then) will no doubt collect his baby from the maternity nurse at the hospital door. So by Don just being there Dennis is brought face to face with his own short comings - his personal failure to live up to his “better man” promise. That's why he's unable to meet Don's eyes.
Well that’s what I eventually got from the scene but only after I thought, “hey has something bad happened to Don’s wife or baby?” This is just the most top notch drama - clever writing and shot to perfection.

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