After last week’s morbid hi-jinx, it was time for a much more plot driven episode of Mad Men, especially as we’re rapidly approaching the end of the season and the finale’s events need to be set in motion. The odd thing about Mad Men is that the more eventful an episode is, the less interesting it is to write about and analyse – it may bore some viewers rigid but the contents of the usual Mad Men episode (all the silences and meaningful glances, awkward jokes and simmering tensions and conversations that seem to go nowhere) do have a lot going for them (they are after all what distinguish the show from soap opera, soaps placing plot developments over character and atmosphere). I’m not saying that this episode was bad at all – far from it, it just wasn’t much fun, and I don’t think that I’ll have much as usual to contribute on it.
It was a sign of how serious the episode was that even the light-hearted subplot was fraught with tension as Don attempted to win back Sally’s affections with tickets to see The Beatles at Shea Stadium. As Don’s hardly the most reliable of men, and that he was relying on Harry to get the tickets, it was looking fairly touch and go as to whether they’d go or not, and I don’t think the already quite damaged Sally would recover from a that major a disappointment. Thankfully, at the very last minute ‘everything worked out’ (as Miss Blankenship’s replacement Megan reassuringly pointed out) and the tickets turned up. Although only really a throwaway plot line, it did mark the first use of The Beatles on the Mad Men soundtrack (albeit only in instrumental form, and a week after The Stones beat them to it) and also offered the rare opportunity to see Betty actually look happy, rather than frown or complain about things, and Sally’s overexcited screaming when she heard the news over the phone from her dad was very cute (if a bit painful on the ears).
And I imagine it offered a relaxing respite for Don (even if he was planning on wearing earplugs at the show) after the week he had. The contract with North American Aviation that Pete had negotiated back in Season Two had finally matured into something bigger, unfortunately it was a defence related contract meaning that the SCDP staff would have to be subject to a security review if they were going to work on it – not a good thing for a man who stole the identity of his dead commanding officer in Korea – as he noted even a rudimentary check would reveal that dates and numbers wouldn’t add up (it’s surprising that something apparently so simple hadn’t been uncovered over the past decade really). What made it even worse was that Don isn’t the sort of man to bother checking through a form before signing it, so he inadvertently ended up consenting to a security check after absent-mindedly completing the form that Megan had filled in for him.
While Don spent his time panicking, looking incredibly pale and sweaty, convincing himself he was having a heart attack and, for the second time this season, vomiting noisily into a toilet, we did get to see a softer side to two of Mad Men’s more unsympathetic characters. Betty proved that she wasn’t a completely awful human being by not giving up her ex-husband’s secrets to the agents who came round to her house to complete a background check on Don. Pete on the other hand actually turned out to be the hero of episode, despite some of his usual whining, he did agree to kill the contract in order to protect Don, which resulted in an unfortunate confrontation with Roger in the weekly accounts meeting as the excuse he came up with – a general’s name was left off a document which caused a lot of offence - seemed like a particularly stupid way to lose a $4million account. (Roger was distracted by other things anyway, which we’ll get on to in a minute). On the subject of Pete, who would have thought that his marriage to Trudy would turn out to the most stable one in the series? His scene with her this week may have included more of his whining, as well as the sight of the incredibly pregnant Trudy wearing a ridiculous short and pink night-gown that made her look like a marshmallow, but there was also a lot of genuine affection as he tried to protect her from his business worries – it can only be a matter of time until she finds out about his lovechild with Peggy and this last happy relationship is ruined, so we should appreciate it now.
After all that he went through this week, Don ended the episode by lecherously staring at Megan. Which in itself is understandable, she’s not only a stunningly attractive woman but, it seems, a very kind and friendly one too, but considering the circumstances, you’d think Don would be able to keep his penis from making his decisions for at least one episode, especially considering that the information he told current squeeze Dr Miller was so sensitive he’s not even told his own children about it yet (and wouldn’t have told Betty if she didn’t find out for herself).
Joan and Roger had their own difficulties to face. For starters Joan was concerned she was pregnant as her period was late (and as her husband had been away for seven weeks at that point, it would be difficult to just claim that the baby was his) and, despite having had an (or in fact more than one) abortion in the past, she wasn’t able to arrange one for herself this time, meaning that Roger had to accompany her to see his doctor, a man so judgemental that he wouldn’t even agree to putting his name on her referral form. As if this wasn’t enough she then had to sit in the waiting room with a far too chatty mother who had escorted her teenage daughter there, and had assumed Joan was doing the same for her daughter – a grim reminder of her advancing years – and Joan was understandably not in the mood to correct her (I got the impression that the baby she aborted previously would have turned out to be the same age as the daughter she lied about having here). Roger meanwhile got a nasty surprise when Lee Garner Jr finally withdrew the Lucky Strike account (a plotline that’s been signposted since the very start of this season), effectively killing SCDP as news of them losing their only major client would scare other business away. Amongst the tactics Roger used to win back the account, or even just to get Lucky Strike to keep things quiet for thirty days, was a bit of what was either emotional or just straight on blackmail as he reminded Lee what he’d covered up for in the past. Judging by what happened with Sal in the last season, I wonder if Lee had been careless enough to let Roger know about his homosexual leanings?
I did find myself with a newfound respect for Lane. Not only is the man chosing to move on from his tedious wife, but in doing so with a black woman he’s suddenly become the most progressive character in the show (Paul Kinsey may have had an inter-racial relationship hmself in the first season, but it always seemed quite clear that he was as, if not more, interested in being seen to date a black woman as he was in the woman herself, in Lane’s case it does seem like he’s just absolutely smitten with her, it’s a shame that they met while she was serving him at the Playboy club though). Still, even his storyline this week was fraught with sadness, from the limp looking Mickey Mouse doll he had enthusiastically brought for his son, who didn’t even turn up, to him being viciously beaten around the head with a cane by his father. It looks like Lane’s going to be away for a little while, after being beaten into submission by his dad into agreeing to go back to England to ‘get his house in order’, but hopefully he won’t be gone for too long, I was just starting to like him.
I think that about covers it for this week, it’ll be interesting to see where all the groundwork laid by these events leads in the next episode.
