It was inevitable that this week’s Mad Men wasn’t going to live up to the explosive lawnmower related fun of the last episode, however, it still felt like a rather subdued affair – which is a bit surprising considering the episode’s director Daisy Von Scherler Meyer is best known for light-weight gaudy fluff like largely-forgotten Jimi Mistry-vehicle The Guru. Although the episode did include one major revelation, being that… Peggy slept with Duck!!! Which was rather surprising to say the least and even a bit sickening, although considering her undervalued presence at Sterling-Cooper it’s not hard to see why she submitted to the first guy who came along and said something positive about her and her work, shame that that guy had to be Duck though. It certainly wasn’t his ‘charms’ that got her into bed, as the chat-up line ‘give you a reach around like you’ve never had’ probably isn’t the sort of thing that girls like to hear, and even the scarf that he bought her as a gift was hideous. Almost as shocking was seeing Don’s tirade at Peggy for asking for work, despite him in many ways being a deeply unpleasant man, he generally manages to do his unpleasant business without breaking his veneer of cool, even sexual assault as we learnt from the Bobbi Barrett incident in season two, so seeing such a strong reaction from him was unusual. Add to that more badgering to keep her mouth shut about Duck from slimy Pete and it’s fairly safe to say that poor Peggy had a bit of a tough time this episode.
As the opening scenes with Don, Betty and Peggy all waking up (presumably at 7:23) showed there were two other major storylines going on this week. Well, not so much major in Betty’s case. Although it’s clear that she’s falling for Governor’s advisor Henry Francis – previously spotted in episode 3 – thanks to the Junior League who she’s now volunteering for in Francine’s place (probably just as well considering the only insight Francine brought to the discussion was that ‘Real Estate is scary’) pimping her out for their own ends. The general unimportance of her mission is pretty much summed up by the names of the real estate in question – Cherry Town and Pleasantville Road Reservoir sound more like places from a fairly average children’s story than a hotbed of political intrigue. Still, with Henry returning her interest, as probably best summed up by him returning her calls instantaneously despite supposedly being a very busy man, it’ll be interesting to see where this relationship goes. It was amusing to see the reaction of the interior designer at the end of the episode after Betty had gone against her opinion (and to an extent that of Don even if he offered his only reluctantly at the start of the episode), by buying a massive fainting couch on Henry’s suggestion and shoving it in the worst possible place. Otherwise there were no major developments in the watch on Betty’s parenting skills, although in a reversal to the normal situation she for once told the kids to turn the TV off when she needed time to herself, rather than the other way around.
And so that just leaves Don, who as we saw at the start of the episode ended up bloodied and generally the worse for wear, which is probably what he deserved for driving around while drunk (there’s still something oddly amusing and yet also rather horrifying about watching him sophisticatedly sip whisky from a glass while behind the wheel), picking up a young couple of hitchhikers in the middle of the night AND take drugs from them without asking any questions. Still it’s somewhat fitting that his romantic reminiscing as instigated by watching the young couple would be pretty abruptly brought to a halt by their violent reaction to him watching them. At the office he had to deal with the unwanted attentions of everybody straining to get a look at the elusive Conrad ‘Connie’ Hilton, which might explain why he took it all out on Peggy towards the end of the episode. The problem I have with the Connie storyline is that it’s incredibly hard to disassociate the image of him with all that follows – so while he was chastising Don for being a late riser, not much of a family man or a Christian, I couldn’t help but think of the attention seeking antics of his granddaughter Paris and wonder what he would think of them. There was also the matter of Roger’s general malaise to deal with, with the release of Ogilvy’s book making ad-men almost as hated as lawyers (with this and Don’s proto-metrosexual interior decorating expertise, maybe this is the beginning of the end of the hard-drinking, macho cult of the ‘mad men’?). Miss Farrell also proved to be something of a challenge, rather brazenly flaunting her sexuality at a parent-child activity, and coming across over-confident to the point of smugness about her allure. Although she wasn’t entirely mistaken, despite his protestations at the time Don’s definitely into her. This will of course be yet more fodder for Sally and Bobby’s therapists when they grow up, both their parents are more interested in pursuing affairs than raising their children, and now even their teachers are proving to be rather sleazy.
