I cannot find some of my posts on the main thread even after I hit the refresh button. It took forever to get on this site. Now, it's slow as can be.

Did not like ep12 at all. Why not just rename Mad Men "The Draper Hour." Don and Betty and their boring kids are beginning to have me losing interest in the show. I could barely get through this episode and kept watching the time to see how much longer I had to endure it. Not a good sign. And another rehashing of the Kennedy assassination was one too many! I was 11 when this old and moldy event occurred and I am tired beyond words of it. Enough!

Hugely disappointed in this episode. I thought MW had promised he wasn't going to re-hash the Kennedy Assasination -- that it had been done, re-done and over-done. The fact that he did exactly what he said he wasn't going to do --not only made for a very disappointing episode (where very little "new" happened -- particularly for those plot lines we're most interested in -- but also made me think MW & Co. is just "marking time." I'm ready to page back to some of the comments of disappointed viewers after S3 just began and read what some speculated on -- like maybe MW had really only planned for and written 2 Seasons-worth. That theory would be supported by all the brouhaha and lack of certainty surrounding whether we would even get to see a S3. Well, Season 3 arrived, but frankly, I don't know if I'll be buying the DVD set this time.

I, on the other hand, loved this episode. Running back over the Kennedy assassination brought back memories ( I was 10), but oddly not one of my parents ever talking to us about it. My mom obviously did not react the way Betty did, but everybody's different.
I think you're right about the dress, Greg. It think was considered in somewhat poor taste for a woman to wear either white or black to a wedding. I could be wrong, because Jane is so fashion savvy. Maybe she was being a tad bit rebellious, but I sense she is a young woman who is not about to be bossed around by waaaayyyy older husband.

I really had to hand it to Mona, though (as did Roger). She really knows how to handle Bridezilla.

I loved this episode... I think others fail to see how deeply this event shaped the nation. (Made me think of the current president and what it would be like if they were successful in assassinating him-but I don't want this to be political).

I think it aroused in Betty emotions that she carefully buries and we almost never get to see. She needed to be comforted by someone she has feelings for. Her drawer discovery and the JKF event pushed her to her final admission that she doesn't care for Don any more, that she doesn't want what she has. That she was able to admit it and how much it scared Don...was quite a shift in the paradigm... The shot where he was peeking in on the breakfast scene was almost if Don were afraid of losing them for the first time -a role Betts usually had.

Roger has had enough and has once again turned to Joan. She handled him with her usual style and grace. He is as much a child as his new bride...he has a candy store in front of him and can't decide which flavor. His lioness comment was pandering and more of his ad-exec "lips are moving but where is the truth" BS.

Glad Pete got taken down. When will he realize this competiveness, the childishness is what is limiting him? He is shooting himself in the foot. For him to leave after his meeting showed poor character. Wish he would take Ducky's offer.

Speaking of Ducky...wouldn't it be a hoot if his company bought SC when it goes out for bid? Now, THAT would be a plot twist!

The question that was asked of Peggy..."why are you seeing him if he is not married?" (after the too much cologne comment) Haven't figured that out unless it is the whole looking for a father substitute...or is it a power thing? I see Peg as an underdog...as she fights her way through-the poor little Catholic girl from Brooklyn trying to get up the sucess ladder but not exactly sure which steps to avoid vs. which will lead her closer to her dream?

Loved the wedding fashions....

Miss Joan in the office.

I took Jane's black dress as a mourning dress, even if it was decorated.

Jane might be childish but she's not asking someone to answer the phone when she's right next to it. Additionally, I think alcohol is toxic to her - one of those people who will never be able to handle booze.

As far as wedding fashions go, I thought Betty's dress was... bizarre. Sitting next to Don at the table, it looked like a housecoat with a fur collar. From the back (as both Don and Henry were waiting) it looked okay but, come on...

I wouldn't go so far as to call it The Draper Hour because pretty much everybody had face time in this episode, but I'm with @TakeFive - I was pretty disappointed that the JFK assassination was front-and-center of this episode. I suppose if MW had never commented that he was going to be low-key about it because it'd been done to death already, I would have taken it at face value. But it pretty much dominated every facet of this episode.

I loved everything about the Margaret Sterling wedding, pre and post wedding as well. Can't wait for the finale!

This show was absolutely brilliant!!!! I remember how the nation was in total shock when the announcement of the president being shot was made. Men and women cried. I remember that my husband closed his office and came home. People were glued to their TV sets and it was a nation in mourning. The writing on this episode was superb. Betty's emotional reaction, Don's unemotional reaction. The different reactions of everyone on the show was so interesting. The death of Kennedy changed everybody's life on the show as it changed our lives too. The way that MW handled this major day that those of us who were involved in will never ever forget was worthy of an emmy. Endings and beginnings. I will be watching the show again tonight for sure.

I, too, was somewhat disappointed in this episode, but not for its treatment of the assassination. With all the build-up from a lot of fans on this Board, MW couldn’t just ignore it, so we had to expect something dramatic. My disappointment was more in the characters various reactions to the situation.

I was most disappointed in Betty’s freak out, and her running into Henry Francis’ arms. It just did not synch with her background and past expressions of disapproval for JFK’s politics. That is not to say that she would not be saddened by his death, any normal person would be. Her reaction, I believe, was outsized based on her demographic and status. She just flipped out, without any emotional or political attachment to JFK or the Democratic party. It really just didn’t make sense. I understand that there is supposed to be some parallel between Don and Betty and the Kennedys. In Season 1, Betty projected her hatred for Helen Bishop onto John Kennedy, saying how much she couldn’t stand him. In Season 2, Betty was watching Jackie give a televised tour of the White House on Valentine’s Day 1962, but never said anything expressing approval. In fact, she had been acting true to her Republican roots when she hosted a political fundraiser for Nelson Rockefeller, and acting as though she would vote for Rocky against Kennedy provided that Rocky won the nomination, which had not even begun as of 11/63. There has been no professed love for either Jackie or the President by Betty, so I don’t see there being any basis for an emotional freakout on her part.

Also, Don told Betty on the dance floor that everything would be OK, she expressed skepticism or disbelief to him, and he kissed her. She later claims she “didn’t feel anything.” She states her exasperation to Henry Francis in the Lincoln, he tells her the same thing Don did but in arguably more cold, political terms. Yet she accepted Henry’s explanation, then soaks up his ridiculous rationalization that he wants to marry her. What a crock! This guy is probably a philanderer on a scale that would put Don to shame. (Recall that the Junior League president KNEW that Henry Francis was a womanizer and set Betty as bait in a trap to do their conservationist dirty work!) But Betty doesn’t see through this ruse. Betty fails to ask any questions of Henry, just like she never asked questions of Don. History is doomed to repeat itself, through the tragedy of her kids’ upbringing. I now know that Betty has lost the “grown up” countenance she held in the last episode and is acting like a spoiled brat as much as Jane and Margaret. (Where is Mona to slap Betty around when we need it?)

Don is looking more and more like a deer in the headlights of every approaching downturn. His apolitical approach to national events has been consistent throughout the series and is, I believe, true to his character. He votes Republican because that is in his best interests as a man of means, and because that is how everyone else around him in his professional life votes as well. It helps him get ahead. But there is no great ideological root that makes him vote that way. He doesn’t want to be present for the Rockefeller political fundraiser. He goes along with the Nixon ads because that is in the firm’s, and ultimately his, best interests. He has no real attachment to Kennedy, his image or his politics, and therefore is somewhat detached from the assassination. He appears a little overwhelmed when Ruby assassinates Oswald, like even he is at a loss for words, and he tells Sally to go to her room. When Betty tells him she doesn’t love him anymore, he looks like he has been mortally wounded.

Hard to know where this will go.

You pin-pointed what struck my nerve endings the wrong way too, ddesq. -- the characters' various reactions. Also, a factual error here or there (eg.: there is no way that Don knew that "there will be a funeral on Monday" --by the time he got home from work. That kind of logistical planning was not revealed until the next day. There were all kinds of other things being worked out -- like where the body would be autopsied; getting the body back to D.C., national defense worries; strategical issues between Johnson and the Kennedy staff, etc. Plus, the word was that Mrs. Kennedy planned the funeral, and I don't think she planned it in the 2-3 hours after the shooting. She hadn't even arrived back in D.C. by then).

Nit-picking, maybe. But since MW decided to focus on this historical event, I say at least get it all right. Sigh. I really felt this was a bunch of thirty-maybe- early- forty-something writers, writing about this from their research. (Now I know why WW2 veterans always took those war movies with a grain of salt. Same for Viet Nam Vets re movies about that war).

Off the soap box and back to the show: I will say that Betty Draper is a lot more emotionally fragile than I even dreamed -- if she has to take pills and go to bed, because she so cannot deal. And Don not being interested in watching any TV coverage as events were still un-folding? Well, maybe that's just him...but I think in reality most people were glued to the TV or radio.

And you'd think good taste would require that Roger and Mona "be grown-ups" and call that lavish wedding shindig off. Come on, the kids could have been quietly married by the priest late in the day...Betty (I think it was Betty) even mentioned that "THE TIMES" said it had been cancelled (but Don retorted that they didn't know that for sure).

But Mona & Roger, step back and evaluate: when even the waiters and the cake dont show up, what does that tell you? (IMO, a small, printed notice on the church door, saying that in lieu of a wedding, the guests could join other mourners inside the church -- that would have been appropriate. (But since when do the Roger Sterlings know anything about appropriatness)?

But I did love when Roger told the guests "You can have both the fish AND the beef." (And just come on up and dig in--yahooo...!)

P.S. This is only the second inappropiate shindig Roger's thrown. What will the third one be?

(Laurie, as weddings go -- and absent the most shattering national event in 20th c. history at that point in time -- I, too, thought it made for interesting viewing. The pre-wedding events (Margaret's histrionics, etc.) were our only comic relief. Besides, parties on this show never fail to entertain).

For three seasons until this episode, Mad Men's writers and producers have managed to present, with reasonable fidelity, a time in American society before most of them were even born. That's a fine achievement. This episode, however, ended that winning streak. It demonstrates that the writers and producers have let themselves be seriously duped by the Kennedy mythology which has been promoted over the decades by a small fringe of zealous, unprincipled historical revisionists. Gullible Americans, driven by pity for Jackie and the children, and by ignorance and/or faded memories, have allowed Kennedy to be presented as a candidate for Mt. Rushmore. At the time of his shooting, however, most intelligent Americans had come to recognize that Jacko was a lightweight who stole the office with voter fraud in the Chicago ghetto, paid for by his criminal daddy and perpetrated by the Organized Crime Outfit. It had also become clear that Jacko was an immoral philanderer, and that he sold out the nation's security by removing our missles from Eastern Europe in cowardly capitulation to Nikita Khrishchev. Overall, the "mood of America" was not one of traumatized sorrow as depicted. On the contrary, there was an (often unverbalized) sense of "OK, that's that. Let's get on with our lives." It's a great shame the show has joined the long-term propaganda misinformation campaign. We might have hoped for better.