It’s fair to say that we’re into Mad Men’s mid-season lull, the quiet few weeks before everything builds up again to a dramatic climax. Not that there wasn’t much to capture the interest in this episode but, like last week’s one it seemed to be a subdued affair.
Really this was an episode where the women got the chance to shine, or more accurately their hair-dos did. From the shot early on in the episode where Sally serenely watched Betty combing her hair, through to Betty’s croissant shaped style later on in the episode and Trudy returning from her trip with a head scarf that made her look like a character out of Grey Gardens, so much of the drama was merely conveyed by how the women decided to wear their hair. And, aside from the ridiculous croissant-style, Betty’s hair managed to remain constantly impeccable, even when waking up in the morning or after a long flight. This was very much her episode during which she got a taste of political power, thanks to Henry Francis stepping in to delay the Reservoir real estate sale, although this was lost by the end of the episode, with Francine informing her that the development was going to go ahead anyway. Her reaction to this was to tell Don at the end of the episode that she hated her life – the place where they lived and all of their friends, and while this may seem mean and petulant we were given an insight as to why she feels this way. Embarking on a literally last minute trip to Rome with Don (who was flown out to once again tend to Connie’s needs), Betty got to reveal a talent that she doesn’t get to use back at home as she confidently conversed with the locals in Italian, and went around the city unaccompanied. Which is where the ridiculous croissant-hair came in. Following a trip to the Beauty Salon Betty, supposedly all glammed-up although it was hard to take her new look seriously, entertained herself with a drink until she received some unwanted attention from a couple of sleazy Italian guys. The Italians didn’t come off well in this episode as in addition to their lewd remarks to Betty, they came across as idiots by referring to Don when he arrived as old and ugly – Don may be many things, but he’s definitely neither old or ugly. This did lead to a surprisingly romantic and charming scene (at least by Don and Betty’s standards) of them pretending to not know each other and then hook up, although once again the seriousness of the scene was a little undercut by the sight of Betty in the bedroom, wearing not only her underwear but that croissant-shaped hairdo and vast amount of gold jewellery (I couldn’t help but think of Princess Leia’s gold bikini outfit from Return of the Jedi). Luckily it was all gone by the morning after and Betty was back to looking like her improbably perfect self.
As all of this was going on, the kids were left at home with Carla, who once again proved herself to have the patience of a saint by not only agreeing to look after Sally, Bobby and baby Gene at the last minute, but Francine’s kids too. Which lead to another incident of Sally losing her temper – after being caught kissing Francine’s son Ernie in the bathtub, Sally violently went after Bobby until Carla intervened. It was odd to hear Carla threaten to not allow Francine’s kids to come over any more as being just the hired help it’s unlikely that she has the power to follow through on this, although she does spend more time raising the kids than either Don or Betty do, as demonstrated when they returned from their whirlwind trip to Rome. When Carla told Betty that Sally and Bobby missed her she responded ‘I doubt that’ before turning her attention to Gene, who’s far too young to show any sort of negative opinion towards her. Don was even less interested, sensing talk about the kids’ behaviour he excused himself to check on the mail, so we were given the unusual sight of Betty seeming like responsible parent, relatively speaking. Towards the end of the episode Betty finally sat herself down to have a one-to-one chat with Sally which, although it provided useful advice for Sally on how to behave around boys, revealed rather more of Betty’s restless state of mind as it was preceded by her staring longingly at the fainting couch recommended to her by Henry Francis and concluded with the line ‘a first kiss is when you really get to know a guy, and every one after that is just a shadow of the first one’. Although Don tried to surprise her at the end of the episode with a little trinket from the hotel gift shop in Rome, it clearly wasn’t enough to stop her thinking of Henry.
Meanwhile at Sterling Cooper Pete and Ken were now also fighting it out in the race to be the most disgusting man in the office, Ken went for the rather direct approach of describing New York in August as ‘all fat girls with hairy armpits soaking their feet in fountain’ (marking an early appearance, and a rather unpleasant one at that, of the women’s hair motif), while Pete’s was, in a perfectly fitting style, more planned out and slimy. Finding himself at a loose end with Trudy away with her parents, Pete soon found himself bored of the lack of responsibilities this brought (a guy can only take so many naps on the sofa and watch so many kids TV shows), until he happened upon the neighbours’ German Au Pair in the hallway. The poor girl, who as the episode progressed retreated further and further into her unflattering bob, was trying to dispose of her boss’ dress which she had managed to ruin and so Pete leapt to the rescue vowing to get her a replacement one. Which is where the most interesting twist in the episode happened, after taking the dress back to the store and demanding to speak with the manager, he was met with Joan – who worked her way up to a management position in the store surprisingly quickly. Despite the friendly chit-chat that followed, in which Joan assured Pete that she had ‘never been better’, it was clear she was lying, her still stylish, but rather deflated hair told us what she was refusing to admit. Of course on giving the replacement dress to the Au Pair, it was inevitable that Pete would force himself on her. What was shocking was that when his neighbour found out, he didn’t have a problem with Pete behaving so callously, but asked if he could take his philandering outside of the building so as to not risk losing an Au Pair that his wife finally got on with. And into this Trudy returned, looking relaxed and stylish from her trip away, although this was soon undone by Pete refusing to talk to her by what he had been up to – by the next scene she had removed her headscarf, a sign that the holiday was well and truly over and she was back to the usual secrecy and resentment of home life.
So all in all it was a pretty downbeat episode this week, even if Joan’s reappearance was very welcome. What did you all think of it?
