'Mad Men' Monday: Shut the Door. Have a Seat.

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the season three finale of Mad Men.*

This was everything I expected and nothing I expected. I spent the hour saying, “Oh my God” and being pleased that while I could anticipate some of the plot turns, the way in which they were executed were creatively interesting and loaded with unexpected twists.

First of all . . . is Betty actually going to marry Henry Francis, a man she barely even knows?! Can this be possible? How can she trust him? How can she not worry that she could be being duped a second time because she doesn’t know Henry that well? To see Betty, baby Gene and Henry on that plane headed to Reno while Carla was home in Ossining with Sally and Bobby (for what, six weeks?) and Don was in Manhattan toting suitcases into a furnished apartment . . . was surprising and yet somehow not.

Clearly Betty felt irreparably humiliated by the discovery of Don’s Dick Whitman information, more so than she did when she learned he was screwing Bobbie Barrett and countless other nameless women, and, when coupled with the emotional iciness Don displayed after the Kennedy assassination, that solidified for Betty that she and Don were history. She decided her best option was to run away with a man who was willing to upend his entire life and accept three children, including a baby, into his life in order to be with her. Betty did all of this coolly and effectively. She was uncowed by Don and his typical attempts to wear her down pin the blame for the collapse of their marriage on her. (“Come on Betts, what are you doing seeing a lawyer?” he said, trying to tell Betty that maybe she was just upset about Kennedy and perhaps should see a psychiatrist. “I want to be civilized about this, please don’t act surprised,” she replied.) Man, it was as if Betty had tapped some of that ice water from Don’s veins and injected it into hers.

Their angry confrontation after Don learned that Betty and Henry had some kind of a romantic relationship, simply allowed Don to verbalize his deepest fears: That someone like him, a poor farm boy with his sordid conception and screwed up family, couldn’t ever get an affluent, educated woman from an established society family like the Hofstadts to love him and be his wife. (“You got everything you ever wanted! Everything! And you loved it! What, now I’m not good enough for some spoiled, mainline brat?”) To watch Don hypocritically call Betty a “whore” -- after his well known, epic philandering, plus given the fact that his mother was an actual prostitute -- was devastatingly sad.

When it was clear that the Draper family would be no more, Don watched as everything else around him crumbled, and he couldn’t help recalling dreary moments of his hellishly bleak childhood, including witnessing his father kicked in the head by a horse. (How poignant was it for Don to come home late one night to find Sally -- who hated and feared “Grandpa Gene’s” room but braved the scariness in order to sleep in her dad’s bed – and to snuggle beside her?) Don lost his wife. He broke his children’s hearts by moving out of the house permanently. (Money says Sally’s going to go haywire next season. Imagine her response if Don openly started dating Miss Farrell?) He lost his major account who called him a “prized pig” when he learned that Sterling Cooper was going to be no more after it, as well as PPL, was being bought by McCann.
 
And from this we saw the birth of a new Don, one who had to be humble again, like the boy from the farm. Don had to admit that in order to form a new ad agency – in that wonderfully espionage-like story about stealing all the clients away from PPL before they knew what hit them – that he had weaknesses that he couldn’t paper over. He wasn’t good with numbers. He wasn’t good with accounts. He couldn’t always see the ways of the future coming at him (the way Pete did). He didn’t value relationships. (“You’re not good at relationships because you don’t value them.”) In order to get the freedom he wanted – to not be part of McCann’s “sausage factory” – Don, ironically, needed people and relationships and humility. And he needed to be plain about it all.

So while Don lost Betty, he had to make amends and appease people, like with Roger Sterling. Don had to go, hat in hand, to Peggy’s apartment and apologize for acting like a Neanderthal toward her, admit that he took her for granted, beg her to come with him to his new company, and say he didn’t think she’d just follow him around like a “nervous poodle,” as she put it. (“I will spend the rest of my life trying to hire you,” he said when Peggy asked if he’d never speak to her again if she turned him down.) He and Roger even set foot in Pete Campbell’s apartment – the domicile of the man who threatened to reveal Don’s secret identity to Bert Cooper as a bargaining ploy in order to secure a promotion – and plead with him to bring his portfolio of accounts to join them.

Joan – yay Joan! – was pulled out of the department store in order to prove how savvy and valuable she is. Trudy – hey, new partners at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, hire this lady – was a source of brightness and light as the new members of the just-born ad agency commenced work in cramped hotel quarters. It was a great scene, seeing the Sterling Cooper refuges – Roger, Bert, Don, Lane, Joan, Peggy, Pete and Harry Crane – in that hotel room, starting from scratch, a humble beginning, all together. Likewise, it was delicious to see not only Lane blithely allow the patronizing British snots of PPL to sack him (as he stabbed them in the back), but to see the rest of the folks not asked to join SCDP wonder if the Sterling Cooper offices had been robbed. When they figured out what was happening, the look on Paul Kinsey’s face when he realized Don had asked Peggy to join them and not him – once again, Paul was on the outside looking in – was priceless.

However, hands down, one of the best scenes was when the SCDP folks were pilfering company files and Roger said, “Peggy, can you get me some coffee?” Peggy -- who eloquently and fearlessly stood up to Don (who rightfully she said Don used her to kick whenever he failed and feeling badly about himself) earlier in the episode – quickly and flatly said, “No.” A new era was been born, for everyone, and now I’m unreasonably curious to find out how the new era of Mad Men will unfold next summer. (Bert Cooper jokingly threatening to lock Harry in the store room was a close second for comedic relief.)

What did you think of the Mad Men finale? Did it meet your expectations?

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: The Grown-Ups

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


The latest episode -- built around the assassination of President Kennedy and the destabilizing impact that violent act had on everyone in the Mad Men world -- was unexpected and outstanding.

I would’ve never imagined, for example, that the combination of losing the senior accounts post to Kenny-boy Cosgrove and watching the news coverage of the Kennedy assassination would've prompted Pete Campbell to retreat into his apartment with Trudy where they clung to one another, to opt not to attend Margaret Sterling’s wedding (a risky professional gamble) and to seriously consider Pete jumping ship to Grey with Duck Phillips.

Betty Draper became unmoored, especially after seeing Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV. Don Draper -- who has appeared distinctly uncomfortable with outward, expressions of deep emotion and sadness -- responded by glibly telling Betty to take a pill and go to bed the night Kennedy died, and continued repeating the line, “Everything’s going to be all right,” as though it was a mantra that would fix everything. But it didn’t. Kennedy was still dead, as was Don's marriage and Betty's trust in him. But, ever the ad man, Don seemed as though he was trying too hard to push the "Everything's going to be all right" pitch, thinking that if he said it enough times, it would be so.

I absolutely did not see coming that witnessing Oswald’s murder on TV would send Betty running to Henry Francis, particularly after the doting behavior Don displayed toward her at the Sterling wedding. I was likewise stunned to watch as Henry proposed marriage to a cash box-hurling woman he doesn’t even know.


The more I thought about the varied reactions to the Kennedy assassination, the only parallel I could make that resonated with me personally was 9/11. On Sept. 11, 2001 and in its aftermath, not only was I, along with millions of other Americans, riveted to news coverage for upon days and days as we sat there feeling stunned and shocked, but there was the lingering fear that we were no longer safe (something Trudy mentioned when she said that if they could get to the president, they could get to anyone). There was an instinct to draw closer to the things and people who were important to you. Thanksgiving 2001 was particularly poignant for Americans as we remembered and cherished what was dearest to us.

Perhaps Mad Men mastermind Matt Weiner was trying to convey that same powerlessness and fear created by Kennedy's and Oswald's public deaths as he had his characters do things that they otherwise might not have done, like ask a veritable stranger to marry you, tell the spouse who’s been lying to you since the day you met that you no longer love him and feel nothing when he kisses you, call your former lover on the phone – your voice brimming with longing -- when your shallow young thing of a second wife is passed out drunk on the bed beside you, and blow off opportunities to advance your career at work when you determine that there’s no longer any future in it.

While darkness and gloom swirled around each character – in particular around a broken Don who sat alone in his shadowy bedroom after learning that the thing he always feared would happen if the truth about his identity came out, had actually came true: that someone like Betty would never love someone like him – there was a bit of lightness in the person of Margaret Sterling in all her bratty, self-centeredness. As the scenes switched from location to location depicting people’s reactions to news that the president had been killed, mostly with tears and astonishment, there was Margaret, in a heap of rich, blindingly white fabric crying, “It’s all ruined!” Mourning her wedding, not the president.
 
Mourning . . . doesn’t that seem like a common thread throughout “The Grown-Ups?” Don was mourning the death of love. Betty was mourning the president and the death of her marriage. Pete was mourning his once promising career at Sterling Cooper and the fact that people at work cared more about business than what had transpired in Texas. Roger seemed to be mourning the fact that he no longer had Joan as a confidante. Margaret was mourning the disintegration of her parents' marriage. And there were Sally and Bobby, their childhood innocence shattering, bit by bit, as they sat in front of the TV and learned that the president’s young children had lost their father.

What did you think of “The Grown-Ups?” By the way, was anyone else miffed that the preview for the season finale contained no new footage? I'm unwilling to accept that next week is the last new Mad Men episode until next summer.

UPDATE: Just saw someone mention on Twitter that there was a similarity between the Aqua-Net storyboard in Peggy's office (four people in a convertible) and Kennedy's limo. I didn't catch that.
Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: The Gypsy and the Hobo

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


I don’t entirely trust Don Draper and how he reacted to being caught in his web of lies as his carefully crafted image was smashed to smithereens by his wife. When I watched “The Gypsy and the Hobo,” after a tough-as-nails Betty called Don on the carpet and refused to back down in the face of his attempts to bully her, I kept wondering if Don and Betty were trying to play one another and whether an actual emotional connection was being formed between them as a realignment and a leveling of marital power was unfolding in front of my eyes.

Why so cynical? Several reasons, chief among them was that Betty had no reason to raise the issue of Don’s serial deceptions with an attorney unless she was seriously considering divorce, particularly in the wake of Don asserting financial control over her, refusing to give her more money when she knew for a fact that stacks of cash were sitting in his desk. Betty doesn’t usually respond well to feeling like someone’s made a fool of her. At the end of season one, she told her therapist that she knew Don was cheating on her, but didn’t directly confront Don. The reason she tossed Don out of the house in season two was because Jimmy Barrett told her Don and Bobbie Barrett were sleeping together and Betty felt publicly humiliated, so much so that she vomited shortly after Jimmy told her. When Don tried to make her feel as though she was an idiot and fabricating a Don-Bobbie affair in her head, she booted him.

When Betty learned from the Hofstadt family attorney that if she sought a divorce she’d get nothing, could lose the kids and everything else to Don unless she could prove his infidelity, I got the distinct impression that Betty started mulling how she could accumulate evidence to hold over his head and use at her convenience. Now she’s confirmed that Don broke the law, stole someone’s identity, went to California during his marriage to Betty to stay with his ex-wife Anna, plus Betty knows about Bobbie and has a witness in Jimmy Barrett, who hates Don.


When Don was cornered and ‘fessed up about the tragic truth of his family background, Betty tentatively put her arm on his shoulders to indicate that she isn’t without compassion. But regardless of Don’s tears, I think Betty’s going to continue to compile a dossier of information about his misbehavior, just in case. Betty’s so miserable, so betrayed, so tired of Don’s lies that I could definitely see her trying to get Don’s money and attempt to keep her parents’ home for herself so she could start over, maybe with Henry Francis, someone who’d trust her with his heart and wouldn't erect walls of deception between them.

My husband, however, argued that Betty’s decision to accompany Don and the kids trick-or-treating is an indication that she’s going to find a way to make peace with all of this, now that the power dynamic between Don and Betty has now been leveled. Don has to take Betty seriously because she has information that could destroy him. I’m just not as certain of Betty’s desire to remain married to Don as my husband is. In season two, for example, I don’t think Betty would’ve let Don back in the house had she not been pregnant. If she learns about Suzanne Farrell, I think it’s curtains for the Drapers.

As for Don, when he was caught with his box of deceit, I kept wondering if he was simply executing a hastily-made, desperate pitch to try to convince Betty of his sincerity amid his tears and throw himself at her mercy. Think about the way in which he revealed his personal backstory and his emotions to Betty as compared to how he came clean with Rachel Menken in season one. The post-coital revelations to Rachel were genuine, from the heart. His emotions weren’t manufactured and had no ulterior motive other than in forging an emotional connection. He’s held Betty at arm’s length and hasn’t been honest with her because he didn’t have enough faith in her love to tell her the truth, whereas he trusted Rachel. With Betty, he had to be compelled to tell the truth, once she had the hard, cold evidence. Don wouldn’t have come clean willingly because he’s never really let Betty inside, as he admitted to Anna Draper last year, yet he’s been willing to allow at least two of his mistresses, including Suzanne Farrell, closer to him than his own wife.
 
While his tears were real, as were the regrets about his brother and the shame he feels about his conception and lineage, I don’t foresee Don suddenly feeling comfortable with being himself with Betty as he has with Rachel and Suzanne. He seems like he simply wants to preserve his hollow, stolen identity, no matter what.


Another reason why I’m suspicious about Don’s sincerity is because when Suzanne asked him if he’d called to tell her he couldn’t see her anymore, his response was, “Not right now. No.” Was he telling her that they had to cool things temporarily until Betty gets less wary, or was he really breaking it off?

However I must say that Don’s dramatic dropping and releasing of his clenched fist in which he held the keys to his desk drawer and all his secrets after Betty said she knew what was inside, the tears he shed over Adam, all made Don seem like a shattered soul. (Jon Hamm was fantastic.) The next morning, though, with his suit of armor back on, it was hard to tell if this event will really fundamentally transform the Draper marriage.

What do you think? Were Don and Betty were being sincere with one another and do they really wish to make their marriage work, or do you think one or both of them is playing games? Will this change anything?

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: The Color of Blue

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

So now she knows. Someone named “Don Draper,” whom she knows as her husband, was once married to a woman named “Anna Draper,” for whom Don has the deed for her California home. She knows that Don has a secret shoebox tucked away in a locked drawer, next to piles of cash, and contains two sets of dog tags for Donald Draper and Richard Whitman, as well as photos with a younger Don being referred to as "Dick."

Betty knows Don’s hiding from her. More than about being unfaithful and rerturning to his sneaky ways again, not coming home, being distant, just like he did when he was sleeping with Bobbie Barrett, and the other women whose names Betty doesn’t know. The question is: What’s she gonna do about it?

Is Betty going to call him on his box of secrets and his lies, or does she hold all of this in reserve, as a weapon to be wielded at just the right moment? If Don had come home the day she found the box when she waited up, it seemed as though she was going to blast him with both barrels, as I, for one, was desperately hoping. But, when he didn’t come home, she put her trump card away. Why, I wondered.

If Betty was smart, she’d do her research, look into Anna Draper, the California deed, etc. to learn the truth. Then she’d have some power over Don, something he clearly has over her, though, I’m hoping, that that’s about to change. Think about how much power Mona Sterling had when Roger left her for Jane and everybody knew it? The specter of the Sterling divorce and Mona taking Roger to the cleaners is what prompted the sale of Sterling Cooper, after all.

Another observation:

“Nobody feels as good about what they do as you do,” Don said to Suzanne Farrell as they were lying in bed and she was talking about something funny that happened with an 8-year-old student in her class.
This got me wondering, is Don only attracted to women who have passion in their lives, people who love what they do? Midge had her art and her bohemian life outside of Don, plus other lovers. Rachel had her department store and her money. Bobbie had her work in the entertainment industry managing her famous comedian husband. Suzanne has her idealism and her teaching (although I suspect the moment she becomes needy -- like she did on the train -- Don will find that unattractive).

Betty hates her life and has no interests. She’s bored and unenthusiastic about everything, her passion extinguished. Does this repel Don? Think about their trip to Rome. Betty was thrilled to be there. She used her Italian and her cosmopolitan ways. She flirted. She felt sexy. She was desired. And this made Don want her. But the moment they got home, he realized she was “stuck” in what she saw as boring suburban hell, she rebuffed Don’s sexual advances and was distinctly unenthusiastic about his gift of a charm from Italy, by telling him she hated their home, their friends and their life. Soon thereafter, Don was running into Miss Farrell’s arms.

I’m not blaming Betty for Don’s infidelity, just trying to understand it. Where Betty clearly longs to be desired, doted upon and pursued (she told Sally that every kiss after the first one is a pale imitation), Don wants a happy, confident woman. They seem to be at a crossroads. Plus they're a bad match, one that I now believe cannot survive in the long term, not happily anyway, not without one of them – Betty – feeling miserable for the rest of her life.

What did you think of “The Color of Blue?” Think Betty will call Don on his lies? Use it to her advantage?

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

'Mad Men' Tuesday: Wee Small Hours

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


“I want what I want when I want, when I want it. You don’t care what it does to the rest of us.” -- Betty Draper, about her baby waking up in the middle of the night crying in hunger, but it wasn't really about the baby.

"I want you. I don't care. Doesn't that mean anything to someone like you?" -- Don Draper, to a young woman he's about to bed after she warns that they could get caught.


I don’t understand Betty and Don Draper. No matter how hard I try.

I can understand Betty’s distaste for the dullness of suburban life, her intellectual boredom, her jealousy that Don gets to work in the city, mix it up creatively, dine in fine restaurants with “clients” and live an exciting life outside of the home. I can also understand that Don doesn’t seem to think he deserves a beautiful wife and an idyllic family who live in a beautiful home in the ‘burbs because of his background, and that thing with the stolen identity. A multi-millionaire who’d appeared on the cover of Time Magazine told Don that he was "indecently" lucky, so why didn’t he feel that way? And almost all the women on the show (except for Peggy Olson) seem to be trying to get what Betty has but she doesn’t seem to want it either.

However when it comes to Don and Betty’s romantic lives, I’m going to have to come to terms with the fact that I don’t completely get them and am not sure I ever will. Don and Betty just shared a wonderfully sexy jaunt to Rome, proving that they’re still hot for one another, but the moment they entered their suburban home all of that just evaporated, like their home and their kids serve as one big, cold shower dampening their affections for one another. So they turn outward instead of inward in an attempt to satiate their deep unhappiness, instead of working together.

Betty, who seems like she’s just waiting for the feminist revolution to start, wants to feel desired and senses that Don’s distracted (or doesn’t like being Don’s housewife, a possession) and looks elsewhere for affection. In Mad Men’s second season, Betty looked to the young, handsome equestrian to dote on her, to desire her, but the moment he tried to forge a real romantic connection and kiss her, she cut him off and directed his affections toward her married friend. At the end of that season, before allowing her unfaithful husband to return to the home, Betty evened the infidelity score with a fling with a stranger in a bar. This season, it’s been Henry Francis, the powerful aide to the governor who has made it plain he wants a relationship with her, which she seems to be seeking (by writing him letters, going to his office to chuck a heavy box at him) and then rebuffs Henry’s attempt.


“I don’t know what you want,” Henry said to her. What does Betty want? Does Betty even know? Is it all just about the satisfaction of the chase and when the chase is over any potential relationship is kaput, like when Betty told Sally that every kiss beyond the first is but a mere shadow by comparison?

Speaking of loving the chase, there’s her husband Don, who has this beautiful Grace Kelly wife and, after she threw him out last year, seemed to be on the good husband/good daddy road to redemption. Don has not acted on his sexual impulses since the near-fling with the flight attendant in the season premiere (though he did run away like an angry teen when Betty asked him why he didn’t sign the Sterling Cooper contract). Then he fell off the faithful husband bandwagon during this “Wee Small Hours” episode where he consummated his simmering desire to have the idealistic, young elementary school teacher whom he asked whether she’s “dumb or pure.”


What’s curious is his selection of conquests. In season one, with Don’s affair with Bohemian artist Midge there was little chance of Don getting caught or Midge running into Betty or anyone Don knew. But as his time has gone on, Don has selected women who are more likely to meet and have run-ins with Betty. Bobbie Barrett was a client’s wife and a person with whom Betty would run into at events. Miss Farrell, Sally’s former teacher who said she sees Betty at the market and lives close by, is even one degree closer. Is he trying to get caught and be punished like the bad boy he thinks he is, deep down inside?

Other storylines:

-- Poor Sal. He was acting in all manner of social correctness with the drunk and aggressive Lee Garner Jr. If Lucky Strikes Lee had made a move on Don which Don rebuffed, do you think Don would’ve been fired as easily as they disposed of Sal? As I watched Sal photocopy his work, I wondered/hoped he and the other “misfits,” Sal and Peggy, would jump ship to join Duck.

-- By golly, is Connie Hilton a nut? The moon stuff, the telling Don he’s like a son and an “angel” and then reprimanding Don for not actually pitching a Hilton on the moon, that whole exchange was baffling. “You did not give me what I wanted. I’m deeply disappointed Don,” Connie said after Don presented a smart Hilton campaign. “. . . [W]hat do you want from me love? . . . When I say I want the moon, I expect the moon.” (Betty could just as easily have said those words to him.) All the moon talk made me think of It’s a Wonderful Life’s George Bailey promising to give Mary Hatch the moon. Anyone else get the feeling that this odd relationship between Connie and Don will end badly?

What’re your thoughts on what Don and Betty really want? On Sal’s termination from Sterling Cooper? Connie’s Hilton on the moon?

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

‘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 Fog

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

This episode was so layered and nuanced on so many levels, that I just fell in love with “The Fog.” Liked it much more than the recent episodes.

Betty Had Her Baby

Who didn’t feel sorry for Betty during this episode? We were supposed to hate the patronizingly nasty Nurse Ratchet who was insensitive and downright cruel to Betty. Nurse Ratchet literally pinned Betty down when Betty was frightened and calling for her husband who she was afraid had left. She blithely told Betty that her ob/gyn was out at a fancy dinner in the city and dismissed Betty’s concerns about having a doctor she’d never met deliver her baby. The capper was when Betty felt as though she could no longer push (I’ve been there) and, instead of offering encouragement, threatened Betty, saying, “Either you can do it, or WE will, but it’s gonna come out some way.”

It’s no wonder that in her drug-induced “twilight sleep,” Betty sought out the comfort from her deceased parents. Betty envisioned her father Gene as a janitor, swishing a bloody mop around the Drapers’ kitchen floor, while her mother Ruthie was standing beside a well dressed man who we later learned had a head wound (a reference to the recently killed Medgar Evers about whom Sally had been talking?). Indicating that "this" is what happens to people who "speak up," Ruthie, clutching a bloodied cloth, advised her daughter, “Be happy with what you have.” Gene, who made no secret that he didn't approve of Betty’s life choices, said, “You’re a housecat. You’re very important and you have little to do.”

During the birth of the child that brought Don and Betty back together, Betty’s mind revisited whether she’d made the right choice in letting Don come back home. Interestingly, we learned later that Betty “allowed” Carla, their housekeeper/nanny, to leave, telling her friend Francine that she could handle two kids and a new baby. No housecat she.

Don Was Doting

Don, whose own mother died in childbirth, could not have behaved more like the model 1960s husband than he was in this episode when his third child was born. With the exception of his dalliance with the flight attendant in the first episode of the season, he hasn’t (that we know of) stepped out on Betty.

Don remained at the hospital during Betty’s labor (when he could’ve gone back to work, as Roger wanted him to do), and bonded with another expectant dad, a prison guard who said many prisoners blame bad parents for turning them into criminals, something with which Don strongly disagreed.

Don brought Betty flowers and took the kids to the hospital, where they were only allowed to wave to Betty and the baby from the sidewalk outside as children weren’t allowed inside. Don let Betty name the baby Gene, though he clearly didn’t like it, and was very sweet to Sally during their late night snack, where Don dished up what appeared to be hash and eggs. The two sat side-by-side in the dimly lit kitchen -- the same kitchen where Betty had the vision of seeing her father -- as Don told Sally, who was still grieving her grandfather’s death, that everything would be okay.

Peggy Wants What She’s Worth

But Don’s soothing words didn’t work on Peggy, who’d had her eyes opened to the fact that she is worth more than Sterling Cooper was paying her.

Duck Phillips, about whom I’d been wondering, tried to lure both Peggy and Pete to his new ad firm, he told them they’d be “sitting on velvet pillows” if they came with him. Heaping praise upon her talents after Pete left their secret lunch meeting in a snit, Duck said, “This is your time Peggy.”

Later, she went to Don and clearly laid out the reasons why she should get a raise: Her secretary didn’t respect her because she only made $71/week more than her, that other males were doing the same job (not as well as she had been) and were being paid more and that it was becoming increasingly costly to live in Manhattan on her salary.

Here, Don’s verbal pat on the head didn’t work. He made a bad joke about finding Peggy a cheaper secretary. When that fell flat, Don then tried to brush her off with his patented line, “It’s not a good time,” saying he’s been “fighting for paper clips around here.” “It’s not going to happen, not now,” he said, as if that was the end of the discussion. “You’re going to be fine Peggy,” he added, similar to the way in which he spoke with Sally in the kitchen.

Delicately touching a pair baby booties affixed to a baby gift left on a table, Peggy bore in, “I look at you and I think, ‘I want what he has.’ . . . You have everything. And so much of it.”

As Peggy sat there, letting her words about the stark contrast between their lives linger in the air, Don invoked a classic Don line which he uses when he’s cornered, “What do you want me to say?”

Peggy called him on it. “I don’t think I could’ve been any clearer,” she said. She got up, went to leave and, with her hand still on the doorknob turned to Don and said, “What if this is my time?” He had no response.

Other episode tidbits:

-- The Civil Rights movement is seeping more and more into the white washed world of Mad Men. Betty’s daughter was talking about a slain Civil Rights leader while Pete was getting taken to the woodshed by Sterling Cooper’s bosses for suggesting to a client that they target their product to a growing African-American market. Pete’s uncomfortable conversation with Hollis, the elevator operator, made the tensions clear when Hollis pointed out that he’s "Hollis," but Pete is “Mr. Campbell.”

-- I wish I had the chutzpah to pull a move like Don did when Lane was grilling members of his Creative Department about why they spent so much money on pens and pencils. Don just got up and left the room. And no one stopped him or said a word.

-- Obviously the story with Sally’s teacher, Miss Farrell, isn’t over. A few episodes ago, Don watched with great interest as she danced around the Maypole. Then she called the Draper home to apologize for an earlier conference where Miss Farrell had questioned why Betty and Don hadn’t taken Sally out of school when her grandfather died. Where this will go, I’m uncertain.

By the way, what was with the Sally-as-William-Wallace/Braveheart snippet, wiping the blood on her cheek while Miss Farrell was talking about the incident at the water cooler?

-- One thing that was bugging me: What was the song that was played during Betty’s vision when she was holding the caterpillar and then at the end of the episode, when Betty went to fetch her crying newborn?

What were your thoughts on “The Fog?”

UPDATE: There's some fantastic discussion in the comments section about Betty's childbirth experience going on over at the Basket of Kisses. Be sure to check it out.

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: The Arrangements

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

Before I launch into my review of the latest MM episode, I have one, tiny complaint: I'm a patient person, at least when it comes to giving my favorite shows/actors/writers a little latitude to see where they're going, because I've liked where they've gone in the past. Whatever it is that I'm watching/reading/listening has to have a payoff, I think, so I'm willing to wait it out. (That's how Lost gets its fans to hang on through things like the Nikko and Paolo debacle.)

And given that I've expressed my adoration ad nauseum of Mad Men and the genius of a show runner Matt Weiner, you know that this comes from a place of love: What was up with the past two episodes? Have they been dragging and excruciatingly slow, or is it my imagination? I can usually revel and delight in the subtle sophistication of a slow-moving plot, particularly in the case of Mad Men, but the last two episodes have left me feeling distinctly unsatisfied, and I don't know if the pace is the reason. Or maybe it's just me.

Annnywaaay . . . onto "The Arrangements."

After I finish watching a Mad Men episode for the first time, I typically reflect upon it as if it were a puzzle, seeking the connective threads that unify disparate storylines. For this recent episode, with the exception of the advent of Sal the Director, it seemed like the theme du jour was the parent/grandparent child relationship.

Grandpa Gene's Arrangements

The most obvious story that fit into that theme involved Gene Hofstadt who put a concerted effort into his relationship with his two grandchildren, and simply tolerated his daughter and his son-in-law. His efforts were followed, of course, by his abrupt departure from his grandchildren's lives after he suddenly dropped dead in the line at the market. Gene seemed to be trying to bond with Sally and Bobby in his own, eccentric manner, like allowing his little princess Sally to drive (!!) and telling her not to give up on herself (unlike her mother), and giving Bobby some of his coveted treasures from his World War I days. Don -- who'd been a supportive though not emotionally accessible son-in-law -- blanched when he saw Gene giving Bobby the helmet Gene had taken from a soldier he'd killed, a helmet which still had blood on it. Don took the helmet away from Gene and that was that. Otherwise, Don and Gene kept a largely silent distance from one another.

With his daughter Betty, Gene expressed his disappointment over how Betty's life had turned out, in particular by her selection of a husband whom Gene never trusted because Don has no family and "no people." During an awkward conversation at the Drapers' kitchen table, Gene attempted to discuss "arrangements" with Betty in the event of his passing. Betty reacted to this subject matter much like a small child, saying she couldn't handle such talk ("I'm your little girl!") and fled the room. I must say, I am so not liking Betty this season. The self-sufficient, adult Betty of last season, who toughened up in Don's absence, seems to have disappeared. What a damned shame.

Shortly after Gene died -- I thought, that because of the way he was doling out parting words and gifts that he was going to commit suicide -- Betty, Don, William and Judy were sitting around the same kitchen table where Gene had tried to talk to Betty about his arrangements, and they were grieving in a matter-of-fact way, with Betty tearing up off and on. It was Sally, still in her leotard and tutu, who exhibited ferocious, gut-level anger that her grandfather had been unceremoniously taken from her. She was furious and raw. Betty had no patience for that and harshly told Sally to stop being "hysterical" and to "go watch TV." Off Sally went seeking solace in front of TV news footage of monks setting themselves on fire to protest the Vietnam War. Sally must've felt like that in some way, except her flames were of burning rage.

Peggy's Mother Felt Betrayed

Peggy decided she needed to move to Manhattan because her commute to Sterling Cooper was too long and draining. A very reasonable and sensible move. But her mother, once the most vocal advocate on her behalf in the Olson household (while Peggy's sister Anita bad-mouthed her to Father Gil, mentioning Peggy's unwedded motherhood and giving the baby up for adoption), morphed into a bitter, martyred, spurned matriarch upon learning that her daughter was leaving the bosom of Brooklyn. Peggy moving out of Brooklyn was a betrayal, as far as her mother was concerned, and Peggy deserved to be punished for it. The transition from being a supportive mother to a caustic one, was jarring, especially to Peggy, whose apartment hunt provided the few moments of levity in the episode.

Other parent/child scenes:

When Don fetched a box, which contained evidence of his Dick Whitman existence, he plucked from it a photo of his father upon which he gazed. What was he thinking or feeling in that moment? Was he remembering how he felt upon the passing of the father whom he despised? Who knows.

Then there was the rich, young client, the jai alai aficionado friend of Pete Campbell's from college, who wanted to blow $1 million with Sterling Cooper on the packaging of a jai alai star and the sport. Because Don knew the client's father was a friend of Bert Cooper's, Don felt it appropriate to give him a heads-up to his son's misguided business venture. A kind, gentlemanly thing to do, though it is a tad patronizing. The father knew all about the plan and described how he was allowing his son to do this as a form of tough love; when his son loses all his money, then, the father said, he'll have to build character and put his nose to the grindstone. That's the only way he'll learn, the father said.

The Sal story seemed disconnected from the other parent-child-centric ones, but it was nonetheless intriguing. As you watched his wife Kitty, in her sweet confection of a green nightie, practically begging her husband for sex, you felt pity for her, while at the same time, could feel Sal's excitement at being able to release some of his creativity -- some shred of his true self -- through the filming of the commercial. If only Sal could actually be himself, instead of pretending to be a happily married man.

One last tidbit: What happened to the season two Bobby Draper? He was by far the best Bobby. Remember that scene when he told Don that he needed a new daddy? This new Bobby -- what is this the third or fourth Bobby? -- doesn't fit in the way the previous one did.

So what'd you think of "The Arrangements?"

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: My Old Kentucky Home

When the credits rolled on the latest episode of Mad Men, I felt kind of, well, disappointed. Unlike most episodes, I couldn’t pinpoint a unifying theme. At least not right away. Sure, there were two parties – Roger and Jane’s horrifically awkward old time Kentucky-themed soiree at a country club, and a business-oriented dinner party at Joan and Greg’s. There was a small working pot “party” with some of Sterling Cooper’s underlings when they had to work on a Saturday.

Then there were the other assorted bits of oddness, Betty’s flirtation with the New York governor’s touchy staffer who, upon seeing her standing outside the ladies' room, opened with the line, “I wish you were waiting for me,” and then moved in to touch her belly in a lascivious fashion. And the stolen $5. Am I the only one who was just waiting for Grandpa Gene to take out a belt and beat the light-fingered Sally? (There was a distinctive darkness hovering around Gene, who had Sally read him The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, of all things.)

Put together, the disparate stories seemed like a hodgepodge of disconnected threads. How did they fit together? Maybe they didn't.

I toyed with the notion that the episode was about places in life as embodied by Peggy’s statement, “I’m in a very good place right now,” despite later being on the receiving end of a patronizing, chiding from her secretary after Peggy insisted that she be included with the creative guys who were smoking pot.

Maybe it was all about places.

Roger and Jane are in a self-contained bubble, pretending to ignore the scorn aimed their way, particularly during their very uncomfortable gathering (the blackface was painful), which Don called “work disguised as a party.”

Betty’s in the world of gestation -- no longer riding horses as she loved last season -- and flirting with a stranger while she looks resplendent in white lace, and later necked with her husband at the edge of a party in the shadows of some trees.

Joan is uneasily morphing into a supporting housewife role – seemingly alien to her -- being placed in a situation by her husband to be his performing monkey in order to up his standing with his bosses. (I hate Greg for the rape scene last year and cannot help but think of him as a domineering, controlling spouse who pressured Joan into performing in front of their company. Did ya catch the uncomfortable look she gave to Greg while she was singing?) Joan's usually the one who sets the agenda and makes the orders, at least at Sterling Cooper. That is, as long as she remains in the secretarial arena.

Gene, a veteran and a former business man, is in a place which is also foreign to him: Bunking in a spare room at the home of his daughter and despised son-in-law, he's been placed under their protective care and the watchful eyes of their housekeeper Carla. Gene is reduced to running around the house, where he’s just a guest, raging that someone had stolen money from him, helpless and confused.

Don -- on whom I can’t get a read this season -- seems to be crawling inside his own skin. He wanted to leave the Roger-Jane fete before he even arrived but stayed because of his obligations to his wife and to Roger. Don was gentlemanly and even affectionate to his wife in attending to her, passionately kissing her -- playing the role of the good husband – after seeing Roger and Jane slow dancing. I wonder if his heart is in the same place as Betty’s when it comes to their marriage?

So maybe there was a unifying theme in “My Old Kentucky Home” after all.

Key/interesting moments and quotes:

-- The Jane/Joan showdown in Sterling Cooper. After a very prickly exchange filled with silences that just hung there, particularly after someone called Jane “Mrs. Sterling,” Jane and her hat told Joan, “Roger is having my rings re-sized. I keep losing weight.” Then she scrunched up her nose in the full-figured Joan’s face.

-- Peggy’s take-down of her secretary Olive’s criticism of her for smoking pot with Kinsey and Smitty was great. After Olive chastised Peggy for leaving her purse unattended in her office and for doing weed (something I cannot imagine her doing to a male boss), Peggy gave this soliloquy:

“I have my own office with my name on the door. And I have a secretary. That’s you. And I am not scared of any of this. But you’re scared. Oh, my God. You’re scared. Don’t worry about me. I am going to get to do everything you want for me. I am going to be fine Olive. I really am.”

-- Pete and Trudy. Oh my God. Pete and Trudy. Doing that dance. Reminded me of George Bailey and Mary Hatch dancing at the Bedford High graduation party on the gym floor that opened up to a swimming pool.

-- Don to Roger, “No one thinks you’re happy. They think you’re foolish.”

What did you think of “My Old Kentucky Home?”

Image credit: AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: Love Among the Ruins

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

Ruins, everywhere ruins. Betty's nuclear family has disintegrated and she's unexpectedly become her father's caretaker. Peggy's innocence, her once commented on earnestness is long gone, as is the Sterling Cooper of 1962, now that all the shots are being called long-distance by some Englishmen who don't understand New York or the American way of business. Then there are the ruins of Roger's life, which he faced with a couple amusing one-liners in this recent episode. All-in-all, a wonderfully complex smorgasbord of messages packed into 40-something minutes.

Betty's Family Changes

What I found notable about the Betty-Don storyline this week -- and the struggles with Betty's brother William over what to do with their mentally ailing father Gene -- was Don's behavior. First, we all know that he has no family of his own left, the one family member he's seen in the past three years, his half-brother Adam, killed himself, something about which he never told Betty. William even brought up the fact that Don had not invited anyone to his wedding to Betty. "Nobody at all," William said incredulously to his wife Judy. Last season, Gene, in a moment of lucidity, lashed out at Don and said that he couldn't trust Don because he had "no people."

And here Don is, with two kids and another on the way, seemingly willingly to be a doting (faithful?) husband and taking a difficult father-in-law who clearly doesn't like him, into his home, seemingly to please Betty and put worries that she's a terrible daughter out of her head. Betty could've taken the easy route, sold her childhood home and put her father in a nursing home, but she didn't want to do that, despite her brother's urging that they do so. "Those homes are for people who don't have families, William," she said.

Surely having Gene in Don's house, not to mention a new baby, will make things even more chaotic, given that Gene needs to be watched and last season groped his daughter after he mistook her for her mother. Don and Betty's marriage almost collapsed under the weight of Don's inability to stay faithful to his wife and to resist something shiny and new. With the added pressure of an ailing father and a third child, I'm expecting that the Draper household will be combustible for the remainder of the season.

Peggy's Lost Innocence

The Ann Margret/Bye Bye Birdie bit seemed to serve as a stark contrast to Peggy, who's young in age but no longer in spirit, given the hell that she's been through. She's no longer the doe-eyed Bambi she was the day she walked into Sterling Cooper for the first time. Peggy's inability to comprehend why men were drawn to Margret's warbling, and Peggy's insistence that an ad campaign which knocked off Margret's Bye Bye Birdie number wouldn't spark women's interest in drinking a terribly named diet cola (I agree with her on that point) further demonstrated that point.

"Don't you find her voice shrill?" Peggy asked Don after showing him the scene of Margret singing. (I found it shrill.)

Don, as is his uber-serious cerebral wont, responded, "She was throwing herself at the camera. It's pure. It makes your heart hurt." (It's worth noting that early on in season one, Don once quipped that he was blinded by Peggy's earnestness. How the times have changed.)

When Peggy said she didn't think that an ad campaign modeled on this would appeal to women, who are the intended customer for this product, that it was phony and disingenous, Don disagreed and said that the message he got from Margret's performance was, "'I'm young and excited' . . . Men want her and women want to be her."

Later that night, the jaded Peggy went into a crowded bar alone, tried out a line she'd heard from Joan, and picked up a horribly naive college boy and later had her way with him. It seemed like something Don would've done, definitely not Ann Margret/Bye Bye Birdie behavior.

What I couldn't get a firm handle on was the scene near the end of the episode when Don, Betty, Gene and Bobby were watching Sally perform a Maypole dance with her class. While Betty, very pregnant, sat next to Don in her bright yellow dress and severe-looking sunglasses still visibly tense from the situation at home, Don became fixated on Sally's teacher, a young woman with long, wavy brown hair which shone in the sunlight and was topped with a wreath of wildflowers. The beaming teacher wore a white dress that moved fluidly as she danced barefoot with her students in this colorful celebration. Don put down his drink and caressed, in a tender, longing way, the grass next to his seat, his eyes fixated on the teacher, who was smiling, the picture of innocence. Was this an indication that Don was longing for a touch of innocence? Lusting after the teacher? Wishing for a piece of her energy? Or was this scene designed to serve as the antithesis of Peggy's behavior the previous night?

Sterling Cooper in Chaos

Ostensibly, the Madison Square Garden project was the "ruins" alluded to in this episode's title, given that the pompous Kinsey likened the razing of Penn Station in order to build Madison Square Garden to the destruction of the Coliseum in order to erect outhouses. When the MSG guys stormed away from Sterling Cooper with smoke billowing from their ears, Lane Pryce called on Don and Roger to pull the account out of the embers, which they did, with the help of Don's golden violin of verbiage.

Don urged the MSG developer to forget about the squawking and the protests over taking down Penn Station because, legally, there was nothing they could do to prevent the project from moving forward. "Let's also say that change is neither good or bad," Don said. "It simply is. It can be greeted with terror or a joy. A tantrum that says, 'I want it the way it was.' Or a dance that says, 'Look, something new.'"

This, I thought, seemed like a multi-pronged analogy. It could be a reference to his reaction to his father-in-law's situation, or to the later scene with the Maypole dance. But it's also a reference to the multitude of changes which have occurred at Sterling Cooper since the British take-over because as soon as Don successfully wooed the Madison Square Garden account -- which Don thought was the key to possibly nabbing the World's Fair and "30 years of business" with MSG -- Pryce told him the head honchos at the London HQ didn't want the account after all. This is not Roger and Bert's Sterling Cooper.

Speaking of Roger . . .

The whole reason Sterling Cooper is no longer Roger's and Bert's is because of Roger and his inability to resist that something new, that something brimming with life in the person of Don's former 20-year-old secretary Jane.

Roger's life appears to be in ruins, despite the fact that he says he's sincerely happy. (For an ad man, he's not selling his message well.) His daughter Margaret told him in no uncertain terms that she didn't want Jane to attend the wedding. She's embarrassed by her father's choices. "She's young enough to be my sister," Margaret said. "How would it look?" Mona, who looked fabulous, was pure acid as she coolly informed Roger how their daughter's wedding thing going to play out. And didn't the wedding date just knock your socks off? November 23, 1963, the day after the Kennedy assassination.

Despite all of this, Roger got some of the best lines of the show:

-- "Oh look, Princess Grace just swallowed a basketball," to Betty.

-- "You ever get two sheets to the wind and try that thing on?" to Pryce about his suit of armor in the corner.

So, what are YOUR thoughts on the second installment of this season's Mad Men? Why do you think Don pushed so hard to get Gene live with him and Betty? Was it purely for Betty's benefit? Also, what'd you think of that last, hand-through-the-grass scene where Don was watching Sally's teacher so intently? About Peggy's night?

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: Out of Town

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

The season three premiere of Mad Men had, overall, an ominous feeling, punctuated by wry moments of sarcasm. From the first scene, conflicting messages were being sent, reflecting the conflict boiling inside our leading man, one Don Draper. There’s an ongoing culture clash and power struggle within Sterling Cooper as the Brits have taken over the joint, while Ken Cosgrove and Pete Campbell have been pitted against one another in the same way John F. Kennedy, the president at the time, famously did with his staffers, with the hope of yielding the best efforts from all his aides.

The Ghost of Fathers Past

Given that the season began with a conflicting scene – Don being a good, doting husband warming up milk for his sleepless, pregnant wife while recalling what an uncaring horror his father was – one would’ve thought, that Don would’ve reformed his womanizing ways. His time spent living out of a hotel room last season, followed by his admission to Anna Draper that he might’ve screwed up the greatest thing he’d ever had, his family, seemed to indicate that Don would try harder.

However a well behaved Don Draper would’ve made for bad television, apparently. So, while he visually conjured up in his mind tales of his father’s cutting cruelty (blaming his wife for “killing another one” after she gave birth to a stillborn baby, then quibbling with a prostitute -- Don’s mother -- over the cost of a condom), you’d at least hope that the reason Don was thinking about these things was to remind himself not to repeat his father’s mistakes. Don, who was thrown out his house last season and then disappeared during his California jaunt, did tell Sally, “I will always come home,” didn’t he? He was comforting Betty with a lullaby woven from detailed descriptions of a warm, sandy beach as he spooned her in bed, right? He’s not his father.

But when Don could not resist the temptation of a blond stewardess who threw herself at him in a Baltimore hotel, does that mean that Don can’t shake the ghost of his father or that he’s simply a kinder, gentler cad named after his mother’s dying wish to do something gruesome to his father’s sex organ?

My favorite scene came at the end of the episode – which featured the same instrumental music that played during Don’s recollections of his father – when Sally, who missed her father so much when he traveled that she broke the locks of his luggage with a hammer, found the stewardess’ TWA pin amid Don’s things. In that moment, Don’s infidelity was right there, in his bedroom, in his daughter’s hands. Don literally gulped when Sally asked if he’d brought the pin home for her and watched as the woman who’s pregnant with his child took the pin and attached it their daughter’s clothing, almost as if she were being stamped with Don’s scarlet letter, except that only he and Sal knew about his unfaithful moment, not the whole village.

Culture Clash

The transition from working for the New York-owned Sterling Cooper, to a British-owned version of Sterling Cooper has not gone smoothly, or so we saw from this first episode when we learned that a third of the Sterling Cooper’s employees have been axed, including the head of accounts who has a sick wife and three kids. Fear of layoffs has been rampant among the staffers and Joan Holloway is being driven bananas by a smarmy, pompous windbag known as John Hooker (the British version of Pete Campbell), who referred to Sterling Cooper: The British Edition, to a “gynocracy.” I’m hoping Joan exacts a slow, twisted revenge on this twit. We saw the first installment of that revenge when Joan told Hooker – whom Peggy Olson called “Moneypenny” -- that he could have the recently vacated office of the fired accounts manager, only to have Hooker’s boss, financial officer Lane Pryce, chastise Hooker and tell him to work at a desk outside the office, not in it.

The Kosgrove-Campbell war shall be very interesting to watch unfold, even if it did seem like a cruel thing to do: Tell someone he’s been promoted to head of accounts, only to later tell him he’s got to share the job with someone else with whom he’s competing. The difference between the ways in which the two men took this news was eye-opening. Ken was relaxed, self-assured and witty when he walked into Pryce’s office. Pete, by contrast, was noticeably nervous, wouldn’t sit down and made lame, almost defensive excuses about why he hadn’t been more hospitable to Pryce since he arrived in New York. At the meeting when the accounts were divided between Ken and Pete, Ken was giddy and smiling, as opposed to Pete, who was sulking, looked near tears and then bubbled over with anger afterwards, like he’d had something taken from him, telling Ken, “You’re no good,” whereas Ken’s response was, “What could possibly be the matter?”

Other episode moments of note:

-- As Sal uncomfortably awaited Don’s response to catching Sal with the bellhop during the hotel fire, I found Don’s response curt but to the point, not at all surprising, given he seems to be the keeper of Sterling Cooper secrets, “Limit your exposure.” Not just a slogan for London Fog (I HATE the chick-flashing ad campaign by the way) but for lying, two-timing husbands like Sal and Don, regardless of with whom you’re cheating.

-- The octopus-pleasuring-a-woman painting in Cooper’s office was off-putting and plain freaky. “I picked it for its sensuality, but it also, in some way, reminds me of our business,” Cooper said. “. . . Who is that man who imagined her ecstasy?” Then Don entered the room. “We were just talking about you,” Cooper remarked.

-- What did Joan mean when she said to Peggy, “I’m gonna be out of here soon.” Are they going to have Joan quit her job in order to marry her rapist fiancé? Or has she already married him and plans to live the at-home married life? God, I hope not. Sterling Cooper sans Joan would be a wretchedly dull place.

I'd love to hear your take on the premiere, both the good and the bad. Why do you think Don was thinking about his father? Who'll win the Ken-Pete showdown?

Introducing, 'Desperate' Mondays

I'm already in Mad Men withdrawal and am trying to figure out how I'm going to fill the void left by the exquisite equivalent of the dark, independent film I've been watching each Sunday evening since July. But fear not. I've come up with an idea. While it's going to seem like forever until we get fresh episodes featuring Don Draper & Co., I've decided to blog weekly about the exploits of the ladies of Wisteria Lane, the Desperate Housewives.

I know, you're saying, "Desperate Housewives doesn't hold a candle to Mad Men." Which is true. No show on TV, except maybe Lost, is comparable to the Matt Weiner masterpiece.

Or maybe you're thinking, "That show is sooo five years ago." (During the days when it snagged two Golden Globe awards for best comedy and offered stellar suburban satire.)

But, in case you haven't noticed, DH has been undergoing a comedic revival this season. The let's-vault-five-years-into-the-future stunt has paid off as the show has regained some of its season one mojo. In the past few weeks, we've seen the once glamorous Gabby Solis transformed into an "everymom," very much dressed down as she's busy raising her two daughters, including one with a weight problem (the one who recently walked in on Gabby and hubby Carlos having . . . relations, or, as they told her, "wrestling"). Lynette and Tom Scavo have struggled with their troublesome teens. Bree Van de Kamp Hodge has emerged as an up-and-coming Martha Stewart, complete with a disintegrating home life. Susan Mayer, freshly divorced (her second), is having difficulties raising her young boy while trying to date. (Read my review of this season of DH here.)

Starting next week, Mondays at the Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum will now feature regular Desperate Monday installments, where we can dish about America's premiere suburban moms, only with a satirical twist. Looking forward to reading your comments.

Image credit: ABC.

'Mad Men' Monday: Meditations in an Emergency (Season Finale)

I adored the absolute cleverness in this last episode of Mad Men. First, there was the title, Meditations in an Emergency, which was also the title of the book of poems Don read at the end of the first episode of the season. (I've got to read that book!) Second, there was the duality of emergencies. There was a meta emergency that unnerved everyone; the Cuban Missile crisis was creating palpable fear of nuclear war. Then there were the emergencies in the Mad Men world that spurred both seeking (and receiving) redemption and second chances in the midst of the potential end of the world.

For the Drapers -- estranged this season after Don's behavior devolved into a dark, sometimes violent place and Betty finally gave him the boot -- it was the fact that Don finally opened up his heart and made himself vulnerable, as well as the fact that Betty allowed herself a meaningless sexual encounter with a stranger in a high-end bar that made a reconciliation possible. Betty's pregnancy wasn't, much to my relief, the reason for the Draper family's reunion. If that were the case, I don't think much would've changed between Don and Betty. He would've felt as though SHE needed him and not the other way around.

But it was through the poetry and sadness of Don's letter to Betty -- reflecting the poetry in Frank O'Hara's Meditations -- that I think sealed the deal for Don's return:

Dear Betty,

I'm sitting in the Roosevelt, looking at the backs of Bobby and Sally's heads as they watch TV. I'm not letting them change the channel because watching the news makes me sick, and they can see it.

I think about you, and about how I behaved, and I regret. I know it's my fault you are not here right now. I understand why you feel it's better to go on without me, and I know that you won't be alone for very long. But without you, I'll be alone forever. I love you.

Don

Add that to the fact that he showed up on Betty's turf -- the stables -- to plead for Betty to allow him to come home, and to tell her that HE needed her and I honestly couldn't see how Betty wouldn't take him back. As they attempt to rebuild their broken relationship in season three, how much truth will Don give Betty? Will he give her the gift of allowing her to really see him for who he is? Will his metaphoric rebirth through baptism in the Pacific Ocean really change how Don deals with his marriage?

Another emergency-theme that faced our Mad Men favorites was the desire to be redeemed and confess before a Russia-U.S. nuclear war incinerated New York City.

After being accosted by the creepily aggressive Father Gill who threatened Peggy Olson with hell if she didn't come clean with God, Peggy instead decided to confess giving her baby up for adoption to the baby's father, the wormy Pete Campbell just after he confessed that he was in love with her (as if that was breaking news). As Peggy slowly and deliberately explained the aftermath of their liaison ("I had your baby. And I gave it away."), she seemed to get lighter as the weight of the secret came off her shoulders. But as that burden was transferred from Peggy to Pete, Pete seemed to shrink under its weight. Now the next move is in Pete's hands, as we're left to wonder if, in season three, he'll continue to remain married to Trudy, who wants to adopt a child (because she can't have one), now that he knows he can father a child and has expressed his love for Peggy.

Taking one step back from the individual story arcs, the the fate of Sterling Cooper as it is swallowed up by a British company is left uncertain. Will our favorite characters stick around? Start their own firms? Will Duck Phillips run Sterling Cooper into the ground as he continues to drink 24/7?

What did you think of the season finale? Did it live up to the hype? What are your hopes for season three?

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.