So, farewell Grandpa Gene, we hardly knew ye. Although it was fairly inevitable that he had to die, as it is the way of all senile old men on television, it came surprisingly soon. I was initially expecting the storyline with him and Sally to develop further – there wasn’t much in the way of repercussions from her stealing from him in the last episode – but on further reflection it didn’t really need to. He served his narrative purpose by being the only one in the Draper household to appreciate and encourage Sally, and with him having done that the time was right for him to be written out so the poor girl could be traumatised further. His bonding with Sally was, in the best tradition of much of Mad Men’s lighter moments, both touching and rather worrying – for example it’s hard not to think about health and safety when watching the scene when he happily let her drive the car along a busy street, or when he insisted on getting the kids peaches as they were her favourite despite the fact that it sounds like Bobby’s allergic to them. Speaking of Bobby, and not wishing to insult the actor who plays him as he’s not doing a bad job, but I still find it a shame that they replaced the actor from the last series, as he was adorable, and I can’t quite warm to the new one.
Betty once again gave us a parenting master class – although it seemed extremely cruel at the time, Don and her psychiatrist were probably right to describe her as childlike back in the first series – her shutting the front door on Sally when they found out about Gene’s death was incredibly cold, as was the reappearance of her catchphrase ‘Go watch TV’ when dealing with Sally’s outburst at the end of the episode. She did win some sympathy though as in addition to having to deal with Don’s philandering and secrecy, it sounds like her beloved, late mother was a nightmare too according to Grandpa Gene’s supposedly jovial stories about her contempt of the young Betty for being overweight. Will this passive-aggressive hideousness continue into the next generation when Sally becomes an adult or will Sally manage to break away from her mother’s influence?
And Sally wasn’t the only one having mother problems, as Peggy’s ongoing quest to become more independent hit numerous roadblocks. If it wasn’t the concern of how to afford a place in Manhattan, or the problem of advertising for a room-mate without having her new colleagues in creative, and her old ones in the secretarial pool, there was having to work out how to break the news to her mother. So she and her sister did so with a new television (‘an Admiral’ as their mother admiringly cooed on being presented with it, evoking brilliantly the aspirational quality of brands in the 60s), and despite their mother’s indignant outburst when she found out why she had been bought the TV, that didn’t stop her turning it on before Peggy even left. It was a little surprising seeing Peggy and her sister getting on so well though, as there was a lot of animosity between the two in the second series, which I don’t remember getting resolved.
As a distraction from all this domestic misery, there were a couple of subplots going on at Sterling-Cooper to occupy us. After all the partying last week it was time for all them to get back to work, or in this case eagerly take the cash of a naive rich boy for his hair-brained scheme. I must confess that before seeing this episode I had never even heard of the noble sport of Jai-Alai (not only is Mad Men entertaining, but it’s educational too!), so I think it’s safe to say where this storyline’s heading. It was interesting to see the difference between Don and the younger employees of the agency – despite his callous attitude to his wife, he really does conduct his business with a sense of honour as demonstrated by him consulting the boy’s father to get the go ahead, whereas Pete Campbell was keen to fleece the boy, despite him being an old college friend. I do think that while Mad Men is celebrating the more liberated values sneaking into the workplace at the time, where anyone – well, only women at this point as blacks and gays aren’t included in this – can succeed as long as they’re good at their job, it is also mourning the loss of the honourable and dignified manner of business conducted by the old guard.
While this was going on the Patio campaign reared its head again. Needless to say I thought that the final result was irritatingly shrill, so Sterling-Cooper did a good job of copying the original scene from Bye-Bye Birdie. Sal deserves the credit for this, even though Pepsi rejected the final commercial, as he took the opportunity to branch out beyond illustration into the world of directing and ran with it. As wonderfully heart-warming (and hilarious) it was seeing him finally come to life when acting out the commercial to his wife in bed, the scene managed to flip quickly into poignancy on seeing her heartbroken reaction to the newly animated, and very camp Sal pretending to be a 25 year old woman pretending to be a 14 year old girl (to borrow a Draperism), so it looks like she knows her husband is gay, even if he doesn’t know yet himself. It probably says a lot about Mad Men’s twisted view of family life that their marriage seems to be one of the happier ones in the series, despite their lack of a sex life (I’m not sure Sal’s homosexuality is entirely to blame for this, it would be hard for even the most red-blooded of heterosexual men to find Kitty sexy in that hideous lime-green polyester nightie), they do both genuinely care about each other and enjoy each other’s company which can’t be said for any of the more ‘conventional’ couples in the show.
And Joan, despite only appearing in one scene, was as radiant as ever. I’m almost getting to the rather embarrassing point of composing odes to a fictional character – hopefully I’ll still be able to fight the urge to do so by the end of the series. It was fantastic how she turned something as dull and mundane as Peggy trying to write an ad for a room-mate and turned it into the comedic highpoint of the episode. Although it also served as yet another reminder that Joan’s severely overqualified for her lot in life, her referencing Ibsen suggests she’s well educated, and she outdid Peggy at her own job with the ease with which she came up with the wording for the advert.
Once again, I’m going to say that you’re more than welcome to join in the discussion in the comments below – I’ve enjoyed reading the ones that previous reviews have received and would be happy to hear from other viewers whether regular, casual or new, or even those of you who haven’t been watching it at all if you’re reading this. And of course, the writing of any romantic verse about Joan will be encouraged by me.
