Peggy Olson
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| Peggy Olson | |
|---|---|
 Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson | |
| First appearance | "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" |
| Created by | Matthew Weiner |
| Portrayed by | Elisabeth Moss |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Secretary to Don Draper Copywriter (advertising) |
| Children | Illegitimate child resulting from affair with co-worker Pete Campbell |
| Relatives | Anita Olson Respola (sister) Katherine Olson (mother) |
Margaret "Peggy" Olson is a prominent fictional character in the AMC television series Mad Men, and is portrayed by actress Elisabeth Moss. Initially, Peggy is secretary to Don Draper, creative director of the advertising agency Sterling Cooper. Later, she is promoted to copywriter, the first female writer at the firm since World War II.
Biography
Peggy Olson is presented as an innocent but determined young woman, eager to be a success in her job at Sterling Cooper after having graduated from a respected secretarial school. She was brought up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York—where she still lives—by a strict Roman Catholic family. She has an immense dislike of the double standard in regard to the vices of men and women.
In the first episode of Mad Men, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", which takes place in March 1960 (according to the calendar in the gynecologist's examining room), Peggy's supervisor (office manager Joan Holloway) directs her in her duties as well as offering personal advice, which includes referring her to a gynecologist to obtain contraception. Peggy is prescribed the birth control pill. Upon meeting Pete Campbell for the first time, he makes very rude comments to Peggy about her dowdy appearance, and Draper warns him about his behavior. Later that night, after his bachelor party, Pete shows up at Peggy's apartment drunk. Despite his offensive remarks earlier at the office, Peggy sleeps with Pete that night.
Months later, Peggy and Pete again have a sexual encounter. This time it's on Pete's office couch, early in the morning before the other employees show up. Peggy shows up again very early to work, perhaps hoping to have another sexual encounter with Pete, but no more sexual liaisons between them occur.
In the Fall of 1960, Peggy rips her skirt trying to pick something off the floor. She then begins to wear the same baggy dress and cardigan outfit to work on several occasions. Ken Cosgrove jokes to his male co-workers that Peggy looks like a lobster, because all her "meat" is in the "tail." Pete, inwardly feeling a mixture of embarrassment for his involvement with Peggy and also still holding a secret attachment to her, reacts strongly to Ken's remark and sucker punches him in the face. Peggy's face and neck also have become noticeably heavier and Joan makes snide remarks to Peggy about her weight gain. She claims that she is only trying to help her, warning her that she will remain a virgin because of her appearance. Peggy informs Joan that she is, in fact, not a virgin.
At the end of Season One, which takes place just before Thanksgiving 1960, Peggy begins to have severe stomach pains right after she is promoted by Draper to Junior Copywriter. She is to head the new Clearasil account. Pete got the Clearasil account because his father-in-law is an executive there. Peggy attributes the stomach pain to bad office food "from the cart," and heads to St. Mary's Hospital in Brooklyn. She is shocked and in complete denial when the doctor tells her that she's actually in labor. Peggy does not believe him, especially since we assume she has been taking the pill throughout her pregnancy. She gets up to leave, but immediately falls over, and the doctor orders her into the labor room. He also orders a psychiatrist to see her as well. She then gives birth to a healthy baby boy (after Season One ends).
Season Two begins 15 months later, on February 14, 1962, with a slim Peggy and no mention of the birth. Her long absence (which is not shown), is a mystery to the employees of Sterling Cooper. One co-worker, the little-seen Dale, cracks during a meeting that "Draper knocked her up and she's dropped 9 pounds, 12 ounces." Pete, however has heard, through office gossip, that Peggy simply went to a "fat farm."
Later during Season Two, we learn through flashbacks that Peggy's mother and then very-pregnant sister, have worked hard to cover up Peggy's disappearance from Sterling Cooper. They tell her worried boss, Don Draper, on the phone that Peggy is in quarantine with tuberculosis. Draper becomes suspicious and seeks her out at the hospital, where he finds her in a terrible mental state. Draper knows her hospitalization is not due to tuberculosis. Draper is perplexed why she is hospitalized, why she disappeared immediately following her promotion, and why her Christmas present has been sitting on her desk for weeks. It is assumed that Draper does not know about the birth, or that Pete Campbell was the father. He instead encourages her to forget about the entire thing, giving her advice he is often heard giving, to "move forward" and that "this" never happened. Her baby is put up for adoption, as the State of New York has declared her an unfit mother. Her sister, who has given birth, is very resentful of Peggy and tells their young new parish priest in the confessional that Peggy seduced a married man, got pregnant, and was forced to give up the baby. Throughout Season Two, we see the priest repeatedly trying to persuade Peggy to admit her sins in confession, but Peggy never does.
During the Season Two finale, when everyone in the office has left for the day, Pete asks Peggy to come sit down with him. Pete has come to the realization that he never should have married Trudy, and instead, he should have married Peggy when he "had the chance." In her "confessional moment," Peggy finally admits that she had his baby and gave it away two years ago (it is now October 1962, the same week as the Cuban Missile Crisis). This admission is particularly shocking and hurtful to Pete, as his wife Trudy seems to be infertile. Trudy wishes to adopt, something Pete rejects, re-considers, then rejects again. Peggy walks out on Pete, feeling like the burden of guilt has finally been lifted. Everyone has left the office for the weekend and we last see Pete, sitting alone, in his dark office, holding a rifle on his lap. It is the same rifle he bought on store credit in Season One, when he returned a gaudy and expensive ceramic chip-and-dip he and Trudy received as wedding gifts.
Although Peggy still attends [Mass] and visits her family regularly, her feelings towards both the Church and her family remain ambiguous.
Peggy's sharp mind and creativity are recognized by Fred "Freddy" Rumsen, another executive at Sterling Cooper, and she is promoted to writing copy for advertising. She is ambitious and her approach is compared to that of Don Draper. After Freddy Rumsen is fired, Peggy convinces Roger Sterling to give her his office,[1] which includes Freddy's much-envied bar.
In Season Three (1963), Peggy's ideas for advertising, while respected, are frequently ignored. In particular, her comment that the proposed ad campaign for PepsiCo's new diet cola Patio, involving a frame-for-frame remake of Ann-Margret's opening scene in Bye Bye Birdie (not even the tune changed, only the lyrics sung by the character) would not actually appeal to the female target audience of the drink is dismissed. When that particular ad is shot down by PepsiCo (whose idea it was in the first place), she smiles a bit.[2]
On account of the difficulties of commuting from Brooklyn, Peggy decides to move to an apartment in Manhattan; her mother regards this as an affront. Paul Kinsey, conspiring with one of the secretaries, pulls a prank on Peggy during her first attempt to find a roommate, and Joan advises Peggy to make her ad about fun and good times. She finds a prospective roommate in Karen Erikson; her conversation with Karen reveals that Peggy is Norwegian, at least on her father's side (Karen is Swedish American, though Peggy tells her mother that Karen is Norwegian to assuage her mother's fears; this fails utterly). [2]
Quotes
- "Those people in Manhattan? They are better than us. They want things they haven't seen." (Indian Summer)
- "My name is Peggy Olson and I'd like to smoke some marijuana." [3](My Old Kentucky Home)
