HE SAID HE WOULD LEAVE HIS WIFE: Kevin Rahm and Elisabeth Moss in the season finale. (
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Peggy Olson might be the most clever woman on television, but when it comes to men, boy, she keeps dialing the wrong number.
On the season finale of “Mad Men,” Olson was left holding the bag once again. Despite her better judgment, she allowed herself to be seduced by yet another attached man who did the “I’m going to leave my wife for you” song and dance — in this case, her boss, Ted Chaough (Kevin Rahm) — only to find out that he would stay married and move from New York to California.
“She keeps getting a pie in the face,” says Elisabeth Moss, who has charted Peggy’s journey from naive secretary to streetwise copywriter over the six seasons of the Emmy-winning show. “She believed Ted. You should never believe the guy when he says he’s going to leave his wife. Every woman knows that. And Peggy got her heart broken. So I don’t think she’s feeling too good about men.”
The sixth season of “Mad Men” was something of a cad’s holiday, with nearly all of the male characters behaving in an awful manner toward women. Pete’s wife, Trudi (Alison Brie), sent him packing once she discovered that his pied a terre in New York City was doubling as a pied a whoopee. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) hit a new nadir when his daughter, Sally (Kiernan Shipka), walked in on him enjoying a nooner with his downstairs neighbor.
Stuck with these losers, it’s amazing that Peggy is able to get through an eight-hour workday. What is the secret of her endurance?
“I don’t know,” says Moss, 30. “She’s oddly gained a lot of self-confidence which she didn’t have in the beginning. She’s constantly getting knocked around, but she has such faith in her work. She believes in her ideas and thinks she’s good at her job.”
At least, the actors who play these cads are decent guys. Olson was particularly fond of Rahm, who plays Ted, saying that he had no trouble fitting in with the “Mad Men” cast who are known to be very tight.
“It’s hard to enter into a show that’s been going for five, six years, and you’re the new guy,” she says. “We got along great from the beginning, and now he’s one of my closest friends.”
One of the final scenes of Sunday’s episode showed Peggy working in Don Draper’s office — now vacant, as he was forced to take a leave of absence — and the camera cleverly showed the room from her vantage point, as if one day she might be occupying that space full time. Moss is not one to speculate about Peggy’s eventual ascension to the main office, but also knows that fans are rooting for Peggy to do just that.
“I don’t think that is her goal. I don’t think she’s thinking that far ahead,” Moss says. “I think that she loves her writing and the creative aspect,” she says. “She wants to be listened to and get credit. If anyone knows how hard that is, it’s her.”
Moss won’t reveal when she goes back to work on the show’s final season; everything on “Mad Men,” even start dates, is a gigantic secret. But she did offer one story line she’d like to see next year: the redemption of Don Draper.
“She believes in him,” she says. “That’s why we keep watching. We want to believe in him.”