'Mad Men' Cast Throws in Their Two Cents on The Summer Man

It was interesting to see what Elisabeth Moss and Christina Hendricks had to say about how their storylines played out in "The Summer Man" as they had very different perspectives than I did on it.

They actresses believe Peggy was proven to have made the wrong move in firing Joey, which they said established Joan as "just" a powerless secretary and Peggy as a "humorless bitch." I, however, think Peggy was seizing power and respect, as Don advised her to do, and showed that the boorishness has consequences. She also showed that she could directly wield power, not just indirectly manipulate people to get what she wants like Joan was trying to do, but failed.

While watching the AMC video recap of the episode, I also noticed for the first time that Don's gift to Gene was a big stuffed elephant. He brought an elephant into the room. Into his former house (is it still the one that the Francis family was supposed to have already vacated according to the divorce decree?) Hmm.

'Mad Men:' Waldorf Stories

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

We learned, quite early on, that this was one of those what-comes-around-goes-around episodes. We got to see Don as an eager fur salesman who'd hounded Roger Sterling for a job, tried to impress and ingratiate himself to Roger, even showed up in the lobby of Sterling Cooper in order to "accidentally" run into him. Then, many years later, as Don’s been nominated for a coveted advertising award, Roger felt as though he’d found Don and, therefore, deserved credit when Don succeeded.

We recall that Peggy was once Don’s eager secretary who was “found” by Don (actually found by Freddy but it was Don who promoted Peggy) to have talent, whose talent Don uses, without providing proper, public credit, to accept an award for work to which Peggy contributed. And Peggy, justifiably, feels jealous.

Then there’s Danny Siegel (Doyle from Gilmore Girls) who’s like a hybrid version of those characters: He’s an eager wanna-be ad man – but he’s got connections to Roger’s wife’s cousin – who tried to impress Don and who pressed too hard. Drunk Don (!) then proceeded to steal “Roger’s idiot’s” idea and pitched it to a clients -- without providing credit -- after Don’s own advertising campaign idea fell flat.

There were a lot of hurt feelings during this episode. Peggy was hurt by Don's apparent blindness to her contributions which led to his Clio. Roger was hurt that Don didn’t credit him with plucking him out of the fur salesman business and hiring him, though the hungover Roger forgot/wasn’t sure that he even hired Don during his booze haze, kind of like how the drunken Don forgot that he used Danny’s “cure for the common [cereal]” line with the Life cereal people and was then guilted into hiring Danny, though he did try to slime his way out of it.

I loved seeing the early scenes between Don and Roger when Don was making the hard sell, slipping his portfolio of advertising ideas into the box containing the fur Roger had bought for Joan. (Ever notice how Don’s eyes seemed wider – literally – and he smiled a whole lot more in the flashbacks, like he did when he was in the flashbacks with Anna telling her that he was going to marry Betty?)

We saw the reappearance of the sad, drunk Don, who’s well on his way to becoming either a brooding Roger or an embarrassing Duck Phillips, who’s also divorced and whose kids are distant with him, largely because of his alcohol problem.

What was awful to watch was Don, fumbling his way through the Life cereal pitch, using the same “nostalgia” line he used in the season one finale, the one he’d so eloquently pitched to the Kodak people for “the Carousel.” Don was a mere shadow of what he was back then, when it dawned on him that family and loved ones were of paramount importance. Only he realized that fact a bit too late to salvage that particular Thanksgiving with Betty and the kids.



To make matters worse, sloppy, inebriated Don continued drinking on that Friday night after he won the Clio. He went home and slept with an advertising professional and woke up at noon on Sunday with a waitress named “Doris” in his bed who referred to him as “Dick,” because apparently he’d lapsed back into his original identity. He woke up from his bender to an irate phone call from his ex-wife Betty who reamed him out for being more than two hours late in picking up the kids as he'd promised to do, making Betty and Henry miss an appointment. Don didn’t even know it was Sunday yet.

And I thought that the post-Christmas party Allison situation, coupled with her emotional resignation, might’ve been a turning point for him. What is Don, another Rescue Me/Tommy Gavin type who needs to reach about a billion low-points before getting the message that things need to change? If he doesn’t allow that message to seep into his consciousness soon, he could indeed be headed for Duck territory.

As for Peggy, that moron Stan and the Vick's campaign . . . I admire the courage Peggy frequently displays when she’s facing difficult situations with no obvious way out. I certainly wouldn’t have taken the route of stripping naked to prove that Stan’s a full-of-crap-blow-hard when it came to his "we should all live purely and naked" line, but that’s why I’m a fan of Peggy’s. She takes you to very unexpected, and oftentimes pretty great places.

Most intriguing moment: Don reaching for Joan’s hand -- after Joan and Roger had already clasped hands under the table -- just before the Clio award in their category was announced. Plus the way Don kissed Joan after he won seemed curious, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

What’d you think of “Waldorf Stories?”

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

'Mad Men' -- The Good News (Dick + Anna '64)

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

This episode was called “The Good News,” but frankly, there wasn’t any good news, other than the fact that Lane Pryce has a wicked sense of humor when it comes to the subjects of slabs of steak and Texas belt buckles.

Don’s downward spiral has been a depressing and fascinating thing to behold. First of all, he’s not eating, with the exception of gobbling down Lane’s sandwich in the break room. Secondly, he’s just drinking his way through his haze of a life, bouncing from one distraction to another (making one inappropriate sexual come-on after another, his secretary, Anna’s niece) trying to get himself forget the pitiable lonely life he’s leading in the wake of his divorce.

So it was a fresh relief to see him visit the calming oasis which consistently seemed to center him: Anna, who still calls him by his given name, Dick. In all the scenes they’ve shared together, there was always something distinctly different, more relaxed and tender in Don’s face. Like he was finally home. (Watch the scenes when he’s in New York, he looks like another person.) “I know everything about you, and I still love you,” Anna told him soothingly, the way he wishes Betty would have after he confessed the truth to her.

By the way, Don’s delusional if he thinks that the reason Betty divorced him is because of the manner in which he was born (from a prostitute whose married john wound up with custody of the baby after she died) and that he came from poverty. “After I told her, I felt relieved,” Don said to Anna about finally telling Betty the truth. “. . . I could tell, the minute she saw who I really was, she never wanted to look at me again, which is why I never told her.”

No Don. Midge, Rachel, Bobbie, that flight attendant, Miss Farrell, the piles of cash that were hidden in a locked desk (about which he lied), his attempts to control and manipulate Betty’s every move (shaming her if he had to) while refusing to allow her access to his true emotions THOSE are the reasons why she finally left. Not because he was poor or because of what his mother did for a living. Anna’s the only person on the planet whom Don/Dick had allowed to see inside his soul.

To learn that Anna had little time left because she had cancer that had spread throughout her body – and no one clued her in about her diagnosis – was such a crushing blow to Don, knowing that the one constant in his adult life was about to leave this world, so soon after his marriage died. I must admit that, given his deep feelings, I was mildly surprised to see him run away from Anna’s like a coward, knowing that this was likely the last time he’d see her. (I’m willing to entertain the argument that perhaps the comments by Anna’s sister contributed to Don, the broken family man’s fleeing: “You have no say in the affairs of this family. You’re just a man in a room with a checkbook.”) He then sought refuge in his favorite places: Inside a bottle and in the arms of a call girl.

LOVED Joan in this episode, her in-your-face argument with Lane when she asked for two vacation days off before Greg goes to basic training, and Lane turned her down because they’d just be coming off a holiday break. “I understand that all men are dizzy and powerless to refuse you but consider me the incorruptible exception,” Lane said. “. . . Now don’t go and cry about it.”

To see them both implode after Joan chucked the flowers at Lane, when she received the wrong set of flowers, was entertainingly uncharacteristic for the both of them.

I also enjoyed watching the heartbroken Lane -- on a verge of a divorce or, at the very least, a serious martial estrangement – engaging in some masculine bonding with Don, causing a lively ruckus in the movie theater, getting rowdy with a steak at an upscale restaurant and then venturing to Don’s sad bachelor pad and sleeping with an escort, a pal of Don’s slap-happy call gal. But the distinct difference between Lane and Don, as we all know, is that Lane’s foray on the wild side is but a blip. For Don, it is becoming a lifestyle, for how long is anyone’s guess.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

Salon Takes on 'Mad Men's' Women: They Disappoint and Depress

Do the Mad Men women frequently get punished and and constantly let us down while the men behave badly yet skate away with their money, privilege and social standing in tact? That’s what Nelle Engoron asserted in her Salon piece, “Why ‘Mad Men’ is bad for women.” This one-time “champion” of Mad Men says she’s now jaded about its depiction of women:

“I’m increasingly disturbed by the striking difference in how men and women are portrayed . . . Even as it depicts rampant sexism, the show sides with the men. The men get off scot-free (if not scotch-free) while the women are subjected to repeated humiliation and misfortune, which is invariably attributed to their own flaws and poor choices.”

While saying that Don continues to be the “suave hero” of the show in spite his many bad acts, Betty, despite having insisted on divorcing Don, is considered a feminist disappointment:

“Being stuck in a life of mind-numbing domesticity is tragic only when the person is capable of — and desirous of — much more. But Betty seems less limited by her situation than by her intellect and character. We have no sense of what she’d do with her life if she hadn’t married, other than perhaps be a Holly Golightly party girl in Europe. Even when she finally leaves Don, it’s not to become independent but only to go to another man who wants to marry her and take care of her every little need.”

Even Peggy’s shyness – which I think she uses as a shield of self-protection as she tries to make it in a world ruled by men – takes a hit:

“While smart, creative and brave, Peggy isn’t allowed to be a full, rounded person and is instead portrayed as socially inept, humorless and utterly unable to connect with either men or women, remaining friendless and loveless. Her stiffness, introversion and social missteps are painful to watch, and her awkward attempts to be more ‘feminine’ fall flat.”

I don’t see things quite the same way. I believe that Don has indeed been penalized for his bad behavior. He lost something he coveted, though didn’t act as though he valued it because he’d never really had it growing up: His family, his educated and stunning trophy wife, their enviable beautiful home in the ‘burbs. He even sacrificed contact with his brother – for whose suicide Don feels responsible – in order to preserve his life with Betty and the kids. But since Betty said, "No mas," Don has been booted from the all-American suburbs, where Miss Farrell said all the dads looked the same, and back to the city to live the life of a bachelor again, a life which, according to the New York Times review of the season four premiere, isn’t all that fun, glamorous or satisfying.

Roger lost his daughter’s and his colleagues’ respect, plus they had to sell Sterling Cooper in order to pay for Roger’s divorce. A handful of Sterling Cooper's core staff – under the threat of having the firm sold to McCann – had to reconstitute itself in a new firm in a hotel suite, starting all over again largely because of the dominoes Roger and his affair (then marriage) with Jane set in motion.

Then there was writer Rachel Shukert who, in her piece ‘I Was Betty Draper,’ said she, a work-from-home writer who was frustrated with how her work was progressing, “empathized with” Betty on many levels, particularly when her own spouse was off working and earning the lion’s share of the household money:

“I understood the icy rage when she coldly offered her cheek to Don to kiss in the mornings. It wasn’t because of the lipstick on his collar or the empty bottle of rye – or at least, not just because. It was because he got to go off to be busy and brilliant and essential, while she got to stay at home, lining the drawers with stupid contact paper. The Drapers’ spats reminded me of the fights I had with my husband when I asked why he was at work until 2 in the morning, why it seemed he had to leave the country three weeks out of the month. ‘You don’t understand,’ he would answer angrily. ‘You don’t have to be financially responsible for another person.’ And I would shout back, more furious with myself than him: ‘God! Don’t you think I wish I was?’”

These characters certainly got under people’s skin.

Image credit: Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC.

Giving 'Mad Men's' Women the Last Word

The folks from PopSugar have put together a video collection of one-liners uttered by the women during the first three seasons of Mad Men, proving that Roger Sterling doesn't corner the market on snarky commentary.

One of the best lines came from Midge, "You know the rules, I don't make plans and I don't make breakfast."

Do you have any favorites that are missing from this video?

A commenter on BuzzSugar asked where Betty's "My people are Nordic" quote was. Also missing, Betty's "Only boring people are boring" and any of the terrible one-liners she has directed at her kids. Surely there must be some Trudy one-liners that should've made it too.

What's In Store for 'Mad Men's' Women in Season Four?

Leading up to the Mad Men series premiere on Sunday night and in preparation for my pop culture column about the fourth season of the drama, I gave some thought as to what I hope the fourth season will bring for Betty Draper, freshly divorced from Don and married to Henry Francis; Joan Holloway Harris, back as the office manager for the newly formed ad agency, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce; and Peggy Olson, who got her emotionally and praise-withholding boss, Don Draper, to grovel in the series three finale in order to lure her to his new firm.

While working on the column, I also read a dense, academically-oriented, yet fascinating book, Mad Men and Philosophy which examines issues such as whether Don’s a bad person and why the self-confident Joan is the least progressive of the three main female stars, as well as examining the overall ethical/moral framework of the show.

If you were on the Mad Men writing staff, what scenarios and stories would you cook up for the ladies of Mad Men?

Image credits: AMC.

Lots O’ New ‘Fresh Start’ ‘Mad Men’ Promos from AMC

AMC just released a whole bunch of new promos for Mad Men’s fourth season – a few of them which had already been posted on YouTube two weeks ago -- emphasizing a “fresh start” for Don, Betty, Roger, Joan, Pete and Peggy.

I continue to wonder whether any of their "starts," or re-starts as the case may or may not be, can REALLY be all that fresh given that all these folks are still tied tightly together, no matter how much they may wish that they weren’t.

I found the promo for Joan – whom the video suggests is disappointed that her marriage to Greg hasn’t turned out to be what she thought it would be – and the one for Peggy – the only positive, hopeful, “Go Peggy go!” one – most intriguing.






Still countin’ down to the July 25 premiere.

To see all the promos, go to the Mad Men site.

‘Mad Men’ Monday: Souvenir

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men*

Whenever I tell people that -- regardless of what they’ve heard about lead character Don Draper -- Mad Men is at its best when it’s about the women, this latest episode will make a great addition to my list of examples, right behind the episode where Betty was shooting the neighbor’s pigeons with a BB gun.

It’s crystal clear that Mad Men is going to go down the Betty Friedan/Feminist Mystique road. Betty Draper not only shares a first name with the author, but definitely suffers from the malaise and disappointment of feeling trapped in the staid life of a housewife, after having received a college education and having led an exciting single life. Everyone told women of her time that what Betty has is what all women should aspire to – a beautiful house in a leafy suburb, money, a successful (handsome) husband, healthy children, household help, nice clothes.

Joan told Peggy in the first episode that if she was lucky, she’d find a husband at Sterling Cooper (like Jane eventually did with Joan’s former lover) and become a housewife. Joan, who wielded authority in a high-powered New York City advertising agency as the office manager (though her ambition was frequently thwarted because of her gender), wanted a life like Betty’s. She found herself a handsome man, a doctor, and became engaged and married him, even after he date raped her when she was at work. Joan planned on “being happy” as an affluent housewife, only her husband’s failure to become a surgeon pushed her back into the workforce where she’s now a manager in a department store and looking quite despondent about it.

However Betty hates her lot in life. She wants to live like Joan again, live in the city, have excitement, have a purpose. Betty seemed thrilled with her work with the Junior League, as it gave her a reason to get out of the house, put on her best clothes, flirt with a man (even receive a kiss from him) in order to get him to do her bidding.

To fly to Rome with Don, to deftly utilize her Italian, to flirt with some men who tried to pick her up and then seduce Don, only amplified Betty’s hatred for her lot in life back in Ossining, a life that’s now about taking the kids to the pool and redecorating the living room. When she returned home, it seemed as though the spell that had been cast in Italy had been broken. And she didn’t like it.

Consider the lead paragraph from The Feminist Mystique and tell me this isn’t where Betty’s headed:

“The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night – she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question – 'Is this all?'”

Betty feeling desired by Henry Francis, by the Italian men, feeling powerful and being able to laugh while men called Don “old” and “ugly” in Italian (given that Don’s such a babe magnet, I’m sure Betty found that highly amusing that Betty was the object of affection) these are things Betty craves, itches that aren’t being scratched, at least not enough for her tastes.

In other stories, the parallels between Henry Francis and Pete Campbell were stark. Both men helped a damsel in distress whom they found attractive and needy and whom they wanted to bed. They both expected something in return for their help, however one was somewhat restrained and let his payment be a kiss, while the other one was a boorish man-child who forced himself on a young, powerless woman who didn’t feel as though she could rebuff him.

While his wife Trudy was out of town, Pete acted like a child, eating cereal in front of the TV while watching cartoons, staying up all night. And he, once and for all, cemented his place in the world of Mad Men as a cad after he pressured a timid au pair – who was frightened he’d rat her out to her bosses for wearing the woman’s dress and staining it – into having sex. You just know that the Peggy thing isn’t over and is going to come back to haunt him.

I loved this episode, for the sexiness of Don and Betty’s Italian sojourn and her Junior League foray into local politics, to the forlorn look on Joan’s face after she saw that Pete found her working in a department store.

What did you think of “Souvenir?”

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

‘Mad Men’ Monday: Guy Walks Into an Advertisting Agency

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

“I’m afraid of what’s going to happen when you turn off the lights.”
-- Sally to Don.

This episode opened and closed with Don and Sally, in the shadows of Sally’s bedroom, with Don trying to comfort Sally who is actively mourning Grandpa Gene, who recently died. And Sally’s unable and unwilling to embrace Baby Gene, who has just come into the world.

From the dimly lit Draper bedrooms the bright light of the overhead projector in Sterling Cooper’s conference room was also used as a metaphor, projecting the new Sterling Cooper flow chart graphically demonstrating just how much the wreckage that is Roger Sterling’s personal life has extinguished the light of his career.

Then there was Joan, asleep on the sofa, cloaked in darkness, waiting for her drunk husband Greg to come home after spending all afternoon and evening sulking in a bar, mourning what he thinks is the death of his surgical career, at the same time telling Joan that she has to either get back her old job, which she just left, or get a new one, putting Joan in the uncomfortable position of being powerless and having to grovel to the Brits to get her job back.

While the episode was heavy in its use of the word "light," as well as the physical presence or absence of it, “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency” seemed to use light as a mechanism to address how the characters are handling the oftentimes abrupt and unexpected detours life throws their way.

Sally: She wanted a nightlight to cut through the darkness that’s hovering over her like a cloud. But, as much as she wanted the light, it provided her with no solace. Neither did Betty’s transparent attempts to get Sally to warm to her baby brother by saying that “Baby Gene” conned some fairies into buying Sally a Barbie doll, which Don later found in the shrubs in front of the house. The final scene had Sally shrieking in the middle of the night after seeing that Gene’s Barbie had returned to her room. As she cried into her father’s shoulder, she told him, “Grandpa Gene, he’s not supposed to be here anymore. He’s called Gene. He sleeps in his room. He looks like just like him and I bet when he starts talking he’s gonna sound just like him too.” To which Don said, “He’s a baby . . . There’s no such thing as ghosts.” Don brought her with him into Gene’s room and, while holding them both, said, “We don’t know who he is yet or who he’s going to be. And that is a wonderful thing.” (This makes two weeks in a row for a tender, heartwarming Don-Sally scene.)

Sterling Cooper: The British “invaded” on the eve of July 4 to gum up the works of Sterling Cooper some more. “We took their money and we have to do what they say,” Bert Cooper said resignedly to Roger after Roger complained he wasn’t on Putnam Powell and Lowe’s new Sterling Cooper flow chart. And, how sad was it that poor Lane Pryce got “promoted” to Bombay (much to his horror) and then, in the wake of the John Deere riding lawn mower accident, got his job back? “I feel like I just went to my own funeral. I didn’t like the eulogy,” Pryce said.

Loved the quote from Pete Campbell on the new “reorganization,” “One more ‘promotion’ and we’re going to be answering phones.”

Meanwhile, Don trod carefully when he was summoned to the Waldorf-Astoria by the head of the Hilton Hotels, the same man for whom Don had mixed a drink at Roger’s horrifying Kentucky Derby soiree, and who was now soliciting Don’s opinion on a Hilton ad campaign. I found it interesting that Don didn’t seem to flinch when Hilton pressed him for free advertising advice, particularly after Don said that this was his profession and that Hilton wouldn’t be in the presidential suite if he gave his work away for free. When Hilton said, “What do you want?” and Don said “a chance for your business,” Hilton told him to “think bigger.” Don’s reply was in the form of an adage about not being suffocated by the opportunity that he can’t see the clear picture, “One opportunity at a time.”

Joan: Once the sage woman who wielded power in Sterling Cooper with her wisdom and powerful use of her own sex appeal, on paper Joan now has “everything,” the wife of a doctor who quit her job to be a full-time wife, something she once described as the lucky dividend of women’s work, as Peggy aptly reminded her. (“I’m really happy that you got what you wanted,” Peggy said. Just, not so coincidentally, like Roger Sterling’s new bride, Jane Sterling, who was a secretary for a blink of an eye before landing a married man, the one Joan couldn’t quite get.) In her dark living room, Joan saw that her transformation from being a full-time working woman to being a full-time wife wasn’t exactly what she thought it’d be. “I wish you caviar and children and all that is good in your new life,” Sterling Cooper’s short-lived chief operating officer Guy MacKendrick said to her in front of the staff, bringing her, uncharacteristically, to tears.

Other noteworthy moments:

-- The lawn mower incident was gory, theatrical and ballsy. To have the shiny new penny of a PPL chief operating officer lose his foot (and his job?) via Ken Cosgrove’s trophy? The subsequent scene where blood was squeegee-ed off of Harry Krane’s office window, to his great consternation, was brilliant. Sterling Cooperites did have a base urge to spill some of the imperialist British blood (though not literally), didn’t they?

-- Notice how warm Betty and Don have been with one another lately? The argument over “THAT” name notwithstanding, the two of them have seemed cozier, more comfortable. The scene where Betty gave Don a can of beer, a bowl of chicken salad and a sleeve of Ritz crackers while Don let her see that he was excited about the prospects of a potential London-based promotion, had a much different feel to it than any of the scenes between them in season two.

-- This exchange:

“I’m bored,” Bobby said to Betty who was holding Gene while lying on her bed.

“Go bang your head against a wall,” she said.

“Mom!?”

“Only boring people are bored.”

-- It’s becoming clear that Betty’s going to favor Gene, as a way to mourn her father (and, by extension, her mother?). How will that affect the increasingly belligerent Sally?

What’d you think of “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency?”

Image credit: AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: The Mountain King

This was another one of those Mad Men episodes which contained a jarring scene that -- like most problematic situations on the show (except for Freddy Rumsen's mishap that directly led to his termination) -- is not likely to be dealt with directly or openly. At least not right away. But more on THE scene of the episode in a bit. We must first dish on The Dish of Mad Men: Don Draper/Dick Whitman.

So many unanswered questions were addressed in this episode with regards to Don. The woman who we saw in the flashback a few weeks ago -- when Don was but an awkward-looking used car salesman -- was Anna Draper, the wife of the man whose identity Don stole. It was to Anna that Don sent the collection of Frank O'Hara poems, Meditations in an Emergency . . . which, by the way, is the title of the season finale next week. In a flashback we saw that after Anna initially confronted Don about his pretending to be her husband, he told her the truth, a novelty for the character we've come to know throughout these two seasons.

Anna and Don seem to have the most honest relationship of all the characters on Mad Men. In Anna's presence, Don was at ease, boyishly giddy at times and true. We saw scenes of Don at Anna's California house celebrating Christmas, fixing furniture for her and telling her that he'd "met a girl" (Betty) who was "from a good family. She's educated . . . I just like the way she laughs, the way she looks at me." (He had to ask Anna Draper to grant him a divorce so he could marry Betty.) Don thanked her for allowing him to create a new life for himself and for not divulging his secret; Anna thanked Don for paying for her oceanside home, his refuge of sorts too, where you can smell the salt air from the porch.

When the episode opened, we saw that Don had abandoned the spoiled socialite he met during his business trip, and retreated to Anna's. He slept while she made him food, bought him clothes. He talked and opened up about what's become of him, saying: "I ruined everything . . . I've told you things I've never told Betty. Why does it have to be that way?"

Poignantly, he also observed: "I've been watching my life. It's right there. I keep scratching at it, trying to get into it. I can't."

Later, as Anna was giving a reluctant Don a tarot card reading, she wisely remarked, "The only thing keeping you unhappy is the belief that you are alone." The final scene of the episode showed Don walking into the ocean, as if being cleansed -- baptized -- while a song about "a new life" played in the background.

Back at the Draper home in New York, Betty had to get on with the business of life, paying the bills, signing Don's signature to checks, taking care of the kids and disciplining her daughter (pulling her by the ponytail and shoving her in a closet!) after Sally was caught smoking in the powder room. After Sally blamed Betty for driving Don away, Betty realized she had to come clean with Sally about her "disagreement" with Don and tell her that she didn't know when Don would be back. Her outburst at Sally notwithstanding, Betty seemed much more in control and independent than we've seen recently.

But at Sterling Cooper, things don't seem so under control. Bert Cooper, while uncomfortable with the precarious economic situation in which Roger Sterling's libido has placed the firm, agreed to merge with another, larger company which has promised to deliver an infusion of money. (It's not clear if Bert understands the condition of Duck Phillips being appointed Sterling Cooper's president.) Peggy Olson landed a big account -- adored her Popsicle pitch! -- as well as a new office next door to Don's office, where she used to be the secretary in what seems like a lifetime ago.

Then there was Joan Holloway. If Don is just watching his idyllic life and trying to find a way into it that feels authentic, Joan is seeking what she thinks she's supposed to want: A marriage to a handsome, affluent, respected physician, Greg Harris. But he's an oaf, a coward and, as of this latest episode, a rapist. Cowed by Joan's sexual experience, he refused to let her take the lead in bed, then, after picking up on a vibe between ex-paramours Joan and Roger at work, Greg ordered Joan to fix him a drink in Don's office where he forcibly raped her on the floor as she tried to fight him off.

In the first scene with Joan and Greg in bed when he seemed put off by her history, Joan said, "There is no 'before.'" Well following this violation of Joan's body and her trust, I hope that the "after" does not include Greg, no matter how badly Joan wants to be a "Mrs."

Will Don be "reborn" into an entirely different persona yet again, or will we see him try to reclaim the life he says that, up until now, he's just been observing from the outside? Predictions for the season finale? Will Joan dump Greg?

Image credit: AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: The Jet Set

Okay, so it's a Mad Men Tuesday instead of Monday . . . because I decided to take a day off with the family. But the extra day certainly gave the show's fans time to ponder the dramatic turns in "The Jet Set." I'm still scratching my head as I have no idea what'll happen next.

Don Draper

In "The Jet Set," Don Draper was literally reaching out for joy:

Joy, the 21-year-old, uninhibited sexpot who had a voice strongly reminiscent of his wife's, who wore a bikini (Don had told Betty she looked "desperate" when she wore one), and who had a rich father who'd apparently be willing to subsidize Don's life as long as he played with Joy, which seemed to consist of skinny dipping, drinking, reading Faulkner and eating food prepared by the help while planning a new escape to an exotic, posh locale.

Joy, the feeling that has eluded him his entire sad, shady life, something that he never thought he deserved whether because of the circumstances surrounding his conception, his infidelities or his identity theft.

After arriving in California for a business trip with Pete Campbell, Don initially chastised Pete for wanting to lounge around at the pool and enjoy the sun, telling Pete that they were there to work. Then hypocritical, talking-out-of-both-sides-of-his-mouth Don was vigorously pursued by a beautiful socialite and ditched Pete on a whim. With no belongings (the airlines lost his luggage), Don hopped into a white convertible with Joy. (This was the only time I've ever felt any degree of sympathy for wormy Pete.)

Don's decision to abandon his work, his responsibilities and his life in order to spend a couple days in a stranger's house, with a strange girl and her odd parents (her father walked into the room where she and Don were naked after having had sex, and called Don "beautiful") was surprising, even though escape has historically been Don's MO. On separate occasions last season, he spontaneously asked Midge, and later Rachel to go away with him, but they both declined. However I thought the season two Don wouldn't have sacrificed the stature, the money and the image he'd crafted at Sterling Cooper on a whim. I also thought he wanted to be a better father to Sally and Bobby than his father -- a violent drunk -- was to him. I was wrong. On both counts.

The final scene -- where Don called someone, identified himself with his given name (Dick Whitman) and arranged to meet with this person -- raised still more questions. Does Don want to reconcile with his past in order to pursue his future, or is that too much to ask of this man who doesn't seem to know what he wants and thinks he deserves nothing?

Sterling Cooper

Are Sterling Cooper's days numbered? Will Roger Sterling's womanizing and subsequent marriage proposal to Don's 20-year-old (!) secretary Jane sink the ad agency as Roger's estranged wife Mona rightfully attempts to extract her financial pound of flesh from her cheating husband?

I found it ironic that Duck Phillips, sadly off the wagon (Does that mean he'll go searching the dog pounds for the family dog he let loose earlier this season?), is the one who's circling the company like a vulture, scheming behind the scenes to slide into the position of president if he secures a 51 percent buyer for the company. (It seemed like something Don might do if Don could get his head out of his rear to see what it is that he has.)

If Sterling Cooper is bought out, Roger and Don's power within the company would be in jeopardy. I wouldn't feel badly to see Roger get his comeuppance from someone, whether it be from Mona -- who he said didn't deserve any money -- or Duck. I don't really care from whence his payback comes. But he, after two near-fatal heart attacks, hasn't learned from his mistakes. Taking up with a woman around his daughter's age? Roger needs a wake-up call because nearly dying didn't do it.

Peggy's New Do, and New Ally

Actually, Peggy Olson's new hairstyle is a direct result of her new alliance with her Sterling Cooper colleague, Kurt, who outed himself over doughnuts in the break room in front of Joan Holloway, Harry Crane, Ken Kosgrove and Sal Romano. Kurt, the only person on the show who seems at ease in his own skin (Think about it; It's true.) took Peggy to a Bob Dylan concert after she said she liked his music. But before they left, as Peggy was lamenting the fact that she didn't know why she always picked the wrong men, Kurt offered to "fix" her. Then he chopped off her hair, giving her a more modern bob.

What do you think is next for Don as he prepares to meet someone as "Dick Whitman?" Think Duck will take over Sterling Cooper? Will Peggy get renewed confidence?

Image credit: AMC.

High on 'Mad Men's' Hendricks

Mad Men's Christina Hendricks is one of my favorite actress of the moment. I love how she's completely dissolved into the character of Joan Holloway circa 1962. I love how, in a day and age of stick-figure celebs, she's curvy and proud, and succeeding.

I blogged, at length on the Picket Fence Post, about how much I adored her at the Emmy awards last month and think she presents a good alternative to the likes of actresses who disappear when they turn sideways.

Now the New York Post's Page Six Magazine is all about lovin' Hendricks and has featured her on the cover of its magazine. In the Page Six interview to be released on Sunday, Hendricks discussed how fashion designers only send celebs samples in sizes 2 and 4 dresses and how she doesn't fit into that world.

"I've always had boobs and hips, even when I was 115 pounds," she said. "And here I am much heavier than when I was modeling, and all of a sudden people are giving me positive feedback. Sure, I'd be happier with 10 pounds off -- wouldn't every woman?"

Image credit: Page Six Magazine.

'Mad Men' Monday: A Night to Remember

"Don't come home. I don't care what you do, I just don't want you here . . . Don, I don't want to see you. [*click*]"
-- Betty Draper, on the telephone with husband Don Draper in A Night to Remember

Who among us did not let up a hoot-n-holler when Betty Draper finally called the philandering dark cloud known as Don Draper on the carpet for his constant messing around? After several scenes of Don trying to make Betty think she was crazy for accusing him of having an affair with the odious Bobbie Barrett -- including the razor-sharp, polka dotted dress, red wine and desperate searching scenes where Betty was seeking tangible clues as to who the hell her husband really is -- the conclusion of this installment of Mad Men was indeed satisfying. The last scene, as the camera slowly drew back to show Don sitting alone in the sadly lit, shadowy Sterling Cooper kitchen drinking a Heineken -- the beer he KNEW Betty would buy because he knows Betty oh so well -- was fantastic.

Betty's been simmering with indignation for several episodes, much like Carmela Soprano when she finally acknowledged that her mobster husband was repeatedly stepping out on her. And Don laughing at the irony of Betty's choice to serve Heineken at a business dinner in their home as she was trying to put on her best, sophisticated face forward to Don's colleague and prospective client, made her feel childish and foolish. And she'd had enough of feeling the sting of humiliation.

The theme, at least as I perceived it, this week was one of a burden that weighs you down and what you do with it:

For Betty it was the burden of maintaining the charade of the idyllic American family with a charming American marriage. Taking a huge risk by throwing Don out of the house (remember how divorcee and mother of two Helen Bishop was ostracized by the women in the neighborhood in season one?), Betty has decided she will no longer bear the burden of ignoring Don's infidelity.

For Peggy Olson, it was the burden of having given birth to a baby out of wedlock that keeps her, in some ways, emotionally separate and apart from others, particularly at her church. (Anyone else think Father Gill was annoying as he persistently pressed Peggy to confess what he already knows? Something tells me that more than just Peggy's soul is on his mind.)

For Joan Holloway, it was the burden of being seen solely as a sex object because of her curves -- evident by the red marks left behind by her bra straps -- instead of being perceived as an insightful professional who made smart recommendations to Sterling Cooper's clients. (Last week Joan's authority in the secretarial pool was undermined by her former flame Roger Sterling when he let a newer, younger version of Joan keep her job after Joan had fired her.) The reality of the sex object burden hit Joan squarely in the face when Harry Krane hired a doofus guy (at a much higher wage I would guess) to do the work -- reading scripts and figuring out during which TV show clients should buy, or not buy, advertising -- that Joan had been doing with aplomb. For Joan, her sex appeal had previously worked to help her advance at Sterling Cooper, but in this case, it made the men with whom she works overlook her skills.

Please share your thoughts about the recent episode of Mad Men below. Were you as thrilled by Betty throwing down the gauntlet as I was? Feel disappointed for Joan, whose fiance wants her to be a housewife?

Image credit: AMC.