The Phantom (10 Jun. 2012)

As the partners consider expanding the office space, Don begins seeing ghosts and gets a request to advance Megan's acting career. Meanwhile, Peter's affair comes to a disappointing end, and Megan's mom briefly reunites with Roger.

Director:

Matthew Weiner

Writers:

Matthew Weiner (creator), Jonathan Igla,

Stars:

Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Jon Hamm	...	Don Draper
Elisabeth Moss	...	Peggy Olson
Vincent Kartheiser	...	Pete Campbell
January Jones	...	Betty Francis (credit only)
Christina Hendricks	...	Joan Harris
Jared Harris	...	Lane Pryce (credit only)
Aaron Staton	...	Ken Cosgrove
Rich Sommer	...	Harry Crane
Kiernan Shipka	...	Sally Draper (credit only)
Jessica Paré	...	Megan Draper
Christopher Stanley	...	Henry Francis (credit only)
Jay R. Ferguson	...	Stan Rizzo
Robert Morse	...	Bertram Cooper
John Slattery	...	Roger Sterling
Alison Brie	...	Trudy Campbell

Storyline

Among those who are depressed about their lives are Megan, Pete and Beth. Beyond getting what she believes are obscene phone calls, Megan is feeling that her acting career is going nowhere, especially after being duped by an unscrupulous agency who filmed a screen test for her. She feels she gets little support from her visiting mother, Marie, and Don. She uses a request from her acting friend Emily to what she hopes will be her own advantage, but she will need some help from Don to achieve her end goal, which he may not be willing to provide. Pete is still restless in his life, even more so when he sees Beth again, this time with Howard on the commuter train. He learns from Beth to where she is going which is directly related to her own depression. Her ultimate destination continues the vicious cycle which is her life. She hopes that Pete will be at least a minor sanctuary from that life. Meanwhile, Don, who refuses to see a dentist about a chronic toothache, continually sees visions...

---

Plot Keywords:

dentist | toothache | shock therapy | lingerie slip | blue panties | 

---

Genres:

Drama

---

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English French

Release Date:

10 June 2012 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles Center Studios - 450 S. Bixel Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lionsgate Television, Weiner Bros.

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Goofs

Near the end of the episode in a motel, Peggy appears to have come out of the shower - hair wet and in a robe. She looks outside the window then sits on the bed and stretches out her legs. The bottom of her feet are too dirty for her to have had a shower.

---

Quotes

Marie Calvet: Not every little girl gets to do what they want. The world could not support that many ballerinas.

---

Connections

References Dark Shadows (1966)

---

Soundtracks

"You Only Live Twice"
(uncredited)
Music by John Barry
Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse
Performed by Nancy Sinatra

User Reviews

Chasing Phantoms

Right off the bat, the male audience is titillated with the guarantee of "brief nudity" viewer discretion advised. Was it Beth in her bra and panties? Close but no cigar. Later, Megan slips into the bathroom to take a bath before dinner—big letdown. Finally, at the end, literally a rear-end: Roger's. The gotcha joke's on us—the promise was seemingly a slick ploy to keep our attention, anticipation. Was the "warning' really necessary for an after prime-time cable show geared to an adult audience? I mean, sex has not been an insignificant theme for this show. We recently saw Marie's head in Roger's lap doing you know what. Anyway, there's also mouth references for this episode: Don's tooth, Harry's "scurvy," Pete's Lifesavers, Ginsberg's outburst (mouthing off), Roger's "conversation," Peggy's smoking, Beth's electro shock therapy. Don's seething toothache—emblematic of his past (hallucinations of Adam) and also his future, as Adam puts it, more than the tooth is rotten. Will Don keep on with Megan? He wants her to stay home. Will there be a baby in the future? But, as his mother-in-law advises him, he doesn't understand the artistic type. (Of course Don is artistic—creativity is the coin of his realm.) As for Harry's scurvy—he's stuck in small windowless office with a column running through it. Like sailors of old deprived of fruits and vegetables, he's been pigeonholed in a dead end position, starved of what he needs to do his job. He's supposed to be in charge of placing ads on TV but can't even get TV reception in his office. Will his life improve when the office space is expanded? Then, Pete wants "fresh" Lifesavers from the lobby. He's bored, despite being a rain maker and partner in a profitable agency, and with a beautiful wife and baby daughter and a house in the country. Yet, he's pathetic— acting like a spoiled brat--he wants a new woman to run off to L.A. where's there's sunshine. A ranch house with a pool is out of place in New York but would be perfect in the San Fernando Valley. Better learn to drive if he's going to California. His weakness is impulsiveness. In the hospital with Beth, Pete covertly decries his family as if they're causing him some great harm and holding him back from obtaining his true destiny. Will Pete foolishly throw it all away? (or perhaps start SCDP west coast foreshadowed in season 2 episode "Meditations in an Emergency") As for Beth, she's gone from feeling blue to living temporarily in a cloud of gray—a metaphor for Pete's life, as well as other characters--products of the 60s, living a philosophy of moral relativism—there is no black or white—only "grey." Pete ridding himself of his family; it's easy erasing a bad memory—painful but not all that shocking. Now back to Ginsberg. He's had it; tired of being under appreciated. He mouths off to Don who just shrugged off a racial slur aimed at the black secretary. Is Ginsberg going to jump ship like Peggy? Next, there's Roger; still a mischievous schoolboy playing antics (breathing on the phone) looking for an adventure—a lot more than just "conversation." He wants another LSD trip. He's living dangerously on the edge—boozing, sex addict, burned through two expensive marriages; had one heart attack already. Will he learn his lesson or is he about to leave for a better place like Lane? We check in with Peggy at her new job—been ordered to take up smoking to try out the new ladies cig. Will it work out? Yeah, sure she gets to ride in a plane for the first time from New York all the way to Virginia and stay in some nondescript motel. But, did she quit SCDP prematurely, just when SCDP is about to expand? The episode culminates with carefully choreographed character snippets to song "You Only Live Twice" (1967, Nancy Sinatra; James Bond movie). This episode taking place about Easter 1967—film was released shortly thereafter. Immediately before song starts, we hear "rehearsal in five" as Megan's in the Beauty and the Beast Butler shoe commercial. She's the beauty. Where the beast? We're left to speculate as Don walks off the set, into darkness, and into the bar (decorated mid 60s Chinese American, a nod to the Asian setting of the Bond flick.) Subliminally, with the music in the background, Don appears like Bond. We're now "rehearsing" foreseeing the future. Lyrics, perfectly symmetrical with the character's lives: "one life for yourself, and one for your dreams." We're taken to Peggy's motel room; she looks out the window--two dogs screwing. We hear "you drift through the years as life seems tame." There's the "tame" dogs humping, perhaps predicting Peggy's screwed the pooch by leaving SCDP. Peggy hops into bed; "till one dream appears and love is its name." Will Peggy find love? Then, to Pete—eyes closed, headphones on, "love is a stranger who'll beckon you on." Will Pete leave? Next, Roger standing nude on the chair, outstretched arms ready to fly out that window, high on LSD, "don't think of the danger." Will he get a grip on reality? Finally, Don. Will he "pay the price" for the exotic girl resembling Japanese actress, Bond girl, Mie Hama who posed nude in Playboy June 1967. So, were there any phantoms in the episode as the title suggests? Yes—Joan spots Lane's empty chair (his life is over in a snap leaving meaningless money for Mrs. Pryce while answers to her questions remain elusive), Megan's career, a "phantom" per her French speaking mother, and seeing her projected on screen in black in white, silent, ethereal, and also the ghost of Adam still "hanging" around (rope burns on the neck) (the show killed off two characters by suicide); and all the characters chasing some intangible dream. My Phantom—to be a writer for Mad Men.