Too many players underestimated their partners, professional or personal, and Don and Roger spelled out the theme in the final moments: appeasement can be a dangerous game. Give someone what they want, no matter what it is, just to make them happy, and chances are they will only want more β and then some.
His assumptions regarding his extramarital flings in his tacky Manhattan bachelor pad were wrong on many levels, from thinking the women he beds will be happy with a casual affair to believing his wife, Trudy, is ignorant to his fooling around. Do you understand? More importantly, she appears to have forgotten the nature of the business β that it is every man out for himself. Or did she subconsciously know Ted would jump on Heinz? In true Don fashion, he blows up the pitch meeting with Jaguar execs by pretending to agree with Herb while pointing out the flaws of his idea.
Herb is left out to dry, and so is Pete, as the other executives politely balk at the go-local pitch. You want to skip dinner? I want you all the time. Sylvia retreats from confronting Don on their sins, telling him she is sorry and that she has no right to be jealous. She tells him of the miscarriage and says she is sorry for not telling him sooner. The next night, however, he stops by to see Sylvia, but Arnold is home.
He ends up outside his own door, slumped against the wall. His stepmother, Abigail, is pregnant and desperate, turning to her sister Ernestine for a place to stay. She knows what it is she is being asked to do, and she is repulsed and resigned to her new situation. So why is Don associating his affair with Sylvia with his time at the brothel? Sylvia took the cash from Don with a smile. So he has to put up with hurt feelings occasionally? Perhaps he has to shell out extra money?
His affair with Sylvia is transactional, while his marriage with Megan is more emotional. But is he translating the idea of sticking with someone no matter what to his marriage?
