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The New Girl
The new girl
Production
Season 2 Episode 5
Air date 24 August 2008
Written by Robin Veith
Directed by Jennifer Getzinger

Previous
Three Sundays
Next
Maidenform

Intro[]

Joan finds a new secretary for Don, while Don is stuck in the middle of personal issues between a TV comedian and the man's wife.

Synopsis[]

Pete Campbell and Trudy Vogel meet with a fertility specialist. Pete tells the doctor that "of course" he wants a child, though he cites "the bomb," the contracting economy, and the general state of the world as causes for anxiety.

Over at the office, Joan Holloway shows off her flashy new engagement ring. A jubilant Bobbie Barrett calls Don from Sardi's restaurant and invites him to celebrate the sale of the TV pilot for Grin and Barrett. Although he says he's working, he later shows up at the restaurant. Shortly after he does, Rachel Menken arrives with her husband. When Don queries about the rival ad agency handling her family's department store, Rachel calls him "all business." After Rachel departs, Bobbie proposes that she and Don head out to her Long Island beach house. She wants to make love on the sand "with the surf pounding behind us."

On the drive to the beach, Don Draper loses control of the car when Bobbie distracts him with a kiss. At the police station, Don has failed a sobriety test and hasn't enough cash to pay the fine. Peggy arrives with the money and drives Don and Bobbie back to town. "I'll forget this," Peggy tells Don then adds that she doesn't want him treating her badly because she knows about the incident.

At home, Don informs Betty Hofstadt about his high blood pressure, and says that the combination of prescribed pills and booze may have contributed to the accident. "I didn't want to worry you," he replies when she asks why he didn't tell her about his condition or call about the accident. Bobbie, who is staying with Peggy because she doesn't want her husband to see her black eye, phones Jimmy the next morning to say she's at a fat farm.

Over at the office, Ken Cosgrove, Paul Kinsey, and Harry Crane; the "welcome wagon", quips Joan; drop by to greet Jane Siegel, the attractive young college graduate Joan has hired as Don's new secretary. Don, his arm in a sling, barely acknowledges the new girl, telling Ken that he's not paying attention to new secretaries until they've survived a month. When Ken informs him that Jimmy Barrett wants to stop by, Don phones Bobbie. She doesn't know why Jimmy wants to meet but assures Don that everything is under control.

"I'm sorry, but it's killing me," Bobbie tells Peggy before asking her why she's bailing Don out of his mess. "He's done a lot for me," Peggy replies. Later, Bobbie further quizzes Peggy about Don. "I'm not your competition," Peggy tells Bobbie. In a flashback, she's seen in the hospital a short time after giving birth being visited by her mother and then-pregnant sister.

At the office, Roger tells Joan he doesn't see why she'd want to get married. "Hasn't stopped you from having a good time," Joan replies. Later, she reprimands Jane, who has unbuttoned her shirt to reveal a hint of lace undergarment, thus attracting a swarm of men around her desk. The office hinges on "professional decorum," Joan maintains, though moments later Freddy Rumsen pops out of his office and performs a Mozart tune using the fly of his pants.

Back at Peggy's apartment, Bobbie says Peggy won't advance until she starts treating Don as an equal. "You can't be a man," Bobbie adds. "Be a woman. It's powerful business when done correctly."

Pete and Trudy argue when a test reveals that his sperm isn't the reason they're having difficulty conceiving a child. After Pete questions the rush to have a baby and lists the drawbacks of parenting -- "You can't travel, you can't go to the movies" -- Trudy calls him immature and faults him for not showing more concern for her feelings. "I really do want a baby," she tells him.

In a second flashback, Don visits Peggy in the hospital. He advises her to do "whatever they say" to get released and then move forward with her life. "This never happened," he says. "It will shock you how much it never happened."

At the office, Don chides Peggy in front of Pete and Salvatore Romano for not having finished an assignment. After the two men leave, she addresses Don as "Mr. Draper" when she apologizes for being unprepared but replies, "Thank you, Don," when he repays some of the fine for drunk driving money she loaned him. As Peggy is leaving Don's office, Jimmy and Bobbie Barrett arrive. Jimmy thanks Don for convincing the owners of Utz Potato Chips to let him do Grin and Barrett while still under contract.

At home that night, Betty serves Don a salt-free dinner (due to his high blood pressure). "Why can't Daddy have salt?" asks Sally. Betty replies, "Because we love him."

Trivia[]

  • It isn’t explicitly stated in the commentary track for season 2, but most of the commentators talk about having a tighter schedule than normal for this episode. It is likely they were behind in shooting at this point in the season. In fact, the crew needed to shoot the scene with Joan showing off her ring in one shot because they were so far behind.
  • The questions asked by the doctor are from an actual fertility pamphlet from 1960. Matthew Weiner knew the doctor who wrote the pamphlet.
  • While writing Bobbie's character, Robin Veith (the writer of "The New Girl") did a lot of reading on French feminism, which says that women are just as smart and capable as men. But they are smarter than them and they should use their physical assets against them.
  • A lot of people started cracking up on set when the cop brought up the legal blood alcohol level of .15 percent (which is much higher than today's New York limit of 0.08 percent).
  • Fat farms back in 1960’s were actually called milk farms, but the writers didn’t think anyone would understand the term.
  • The bathroom scene with Pete (where he provides his semen sample) wasn’t in the script. Robin Veith and Jennifer Getzinger (the director of "The New Girl") decided to shoot it while shooting the episode. Matthew Weiner was sold because he knew the next scene was going to be Roger with the paddle ball.
  • In the commentary track for season 2, Elisabeth Moss says that Jon Hamm made her cry the way he delivered his lines during the flashback scenes. According to Jennifer Getzinger, there wasn’t a "dry eye on set".
  • Everyone cheered at the read-through when Peggy calls Don by his first name instead of "Mr. Draper".
  • The kids scarfed down the meatloaf during the shooting of the last scene.

Cast[]

Main Star[]

Guest Star[]

Quotes[]

Roger: "I hear congratulations are in order."
Joan: "Yes"
Roger: "Marriage, don't know why you'd wanna join that club baby."
Joan: "Hasn't stopped you from having a good time."
Roger: "How old is this guy?"
Joan: "He's 34."
Roger: "What's wrong with him?"
Joan: "Nothing."
Roger: "Well I think its nice, to hear the story of relatively young love."
Joan: "Are you being a concerned daddy?"
Roger: "I'll tell you the same thing I told my daughter, if you put a penny in a jar everytime you make love in the first year of marriage, and then you take a penny out the jar everytime you make love in the second year, you know what you'll have? A jar full of pennies."
Joan: "I envy that girl having you to give her away. I've always been faithful to whom ever I was with. And despite your jokes, I always assumed you were unhappy with Mona, not the whole idea."
Roger: "You aren't just another woman Joan."
Joan: "Well it doesn't matter now does it? I fell in love."

Ken Cosgrove: Jane, I have some very important talent coming in tomorrow to see Dawn, somebody famous, and I just want to make sure you're aware of that.
Jane Sterling: What's your title here?
Ken Cosgrove: Title? (chuckles) I'm Ken... Cosgrove. Accounts.

Seasons of Mad Men
Season 1 • "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" • "Ladies Room" • "Marriage of Figaro" • "New Amsterdam" • "5G" • "Babylon" • "Red in the Face" • "The Hobo Code" • "Shoot" • "Long Weekend" • "Indian Summer" • "Nixon vs. Kennedy" • "The Wheel" •
Season 2 • "For Those Who Think Young" • "Flight 1" • "The Benefactor" • "Three Sundays" • "The New Girl" • "Maidenform" • "The Gold Violin" • "A Night to Remember" • "Six Month Leave" • "The Inheritance" • "The Jet Set" • "The Mountain King" • "Meditations in an Emergency" •
Season 3 • "Out of Town" • "Love Among the Ruins" • "My Old Kentucky Home" • "The Arrangements" • "The Fog" • "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency" • "Seven Twenty Three" • "Souvenir" • "Wee Small Hours" • "The Color Blue" • "The Gypsy and the Hobo" • "The Grown-Ups" • "Shut the Door. Have a Seat" •
Season 4 • "Public Relations" • "Christmas Comes But Once a Year" • "The Good News" • "The Rejected" • "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" • "Waldorf Stories" • "The Suitcase" • "The Summer Man" • "The Beautiful Girls" • "Hands and Knees" • "Chinese Wall" • "Blowing Smoke" • "Tomorrowland" •
Season 5 • "A Little Kiss, Part 1" • "A Little Kiss, Part 2" • "Tea Leaves" • "Mystery Date" • "Signal 30" • "Far Away Places" • "At the Codfish Ball" • "Lady Lazarus" • "Dark Shadows" • "Christmas Waltz" • "The Other Woman" • "Commissions and Fees" • "The Phantom" •
Season 6 • "The Doorway, Part 1" • "The Doorway, Part 2" • "The Collaborators" • "To Have and To Hold" • "The Flood" • "For Immediate Release" • "Man With a Plan" • "The Crash" • "The Better Half" • "A Tale of Two Cities" • "Favors" • "The Quality of Mercy" • "In Care Of" •
Season 7 • "Time Zones" • "A Day's Work" • "Field Trip" • "The Monolith" • "The Runaways" • "The Strategy" • "Waterloo" • "Severance" • "New Business" • "The Forecast" • "Time & Life" • "Lost Horizon" • "The Milk and Honey Route" • "Person to Person" •
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