It’s adorable. Glen listens to Sally. He hears she wants to move. He breaks into her house, to make her parents be like, OH UNSAFE HOME! And then move. And he leaves Sally’s room spotless, and leaves her the keychain. It’s adorable. I love it.

So, at first, Glen Bishop is a perfectly lovely young boy. He’s cute. He plays the piano. He enjoys ironing clothes. He’s nice. And you feel bad for him after seeing a few spats of his home life. But then, he asks for Betty Draper’s hair.

That’s it. That is when he becomes creepy.

And people think it’s so odd that she actually gave it to him. But, wouldn’t you? What’s the harm. He’s obviously already super strange, so if my hair made him happy I’d give him some.

Oh, then there’s this.. Glen peering in at Betty Draper on the toilet. Silently. I guess that’s a little bit creepy also.

Two episodes left in what’s been a hell of a run for Mad Men this season. We’ve seen agency fortunes rise and fall, we’ve seen acid trips and fisticuffs, split narratives and unstuck timelines, guest appearances from Leland Palmer, Alex Mack, Mr. Belding and Rory Gilmore. For a show that a lot of people (the Barker Chappell Daglas agency included) have chastised for being less than subtle this year in its messages, it certainly hasn’t offset the overall quality of what is commonly considered the greatest show on television.

And in Mad Men fashion they’re saving the big guns for last, as last Sunday’s “Commissions and Fees” finally brought resolution to the season’s very heavy foreshadowing. Cory Barker, Andy Daglas and I are here to break down the penultimate episode of Mad Men season five. To reassure you beforehand, please note that none of the three partners in BCD are in dire financial straits at this time, so don’t worry about us huffing carbon monoxide in a Jaguar by the end of this discussion. (And also please note that would you like to contract our services after the season wraps, this agency operates on straight commission but will negotiate fee structures if the terms are acceptable.)

Let’s negotiate our “Commissions and Fees”:

Les: Traditionally, Mad Men‘s penultimate episodes are the ones where the season’s most earth-shattering moments happen. In season one, we learned the truth of who Dick Whitman really was, and the circumstances by which he came to become Don Draper. Season two saw Sterling Cooper sold to the British (the first major firm decision made with Don in absentia and the most recent of which came last week) and the reveal of Anna Draper’s existence. Season three was the Kennedy assassination and the collapse of the Draper marriage, which finally came down once Betty learned the truth. Season four was the gutting of SCDP after Lucky Strike’s abandonment of the firm and Don’s subsequent letter to the New York Times, a move that gave the company considerable press but poisoned the well in the long run (as Ed Baxter pointed out a few episodes ago and reminded us of again tonight).

Season five’s penultimate “Commissions and Fees?” No different. The death pool we’ve been speculating on all season, and which I was coming very close to writing off as a season’s worth of misdirection, finally yielded results.

And the final “winner?” Lane Pryce. His forgery of a few weeks ago finally came to light through the meddling of Bert Cooper, and Don – intractable to the last on so many things – tells Lane that he has to accept his resignation because he can never trust him again. Don tries to phrase it in the best of terms, offering it as a chance for Lane to restart his life in Dick Whitmanesque fashion, but Lane’s stiff upper lip nature can’t even allow for the possibility. He stares out the window at the falling snow, throws up at the sight of the Jaguar Rebecca bought him, and after a sleepless night comes to terms with what he thinks needs to be done.

I called Lane as the leading death pool candidate back when we discussed “Christmas Waltz,” but I take no pleasure in knowing I was right. We’ve had qualms with the Lane stories this season, but this was a gut-punch of a reveal to me personally, as I’ve always liked Lane as a character and became a Jared Harris fan because of what he did on this show. I thought it was coming from the moment Scarlett said that Lane’s office was locked, but the gradual realization of it – and the dark inverse of Peggy’s peeping from “The Rejected” used to reveal the truth to Pete and company – was done in devastating fashion. The look on Don, Roger and Pete’s faces as they saw what he’d done and subsequently cut him down was tragic, especially to those of us who thought any of them could go the same route this season. And poor, pathetic Lane, thwarted to the last – his more dignified approach of suffocating himself with the exhaust of the Jaguar he fought so hard to bring to the agency was thwarted by the car’s shoddy workmanship, and his symbolic spectacle breaking ruined as he had to hold one up to examine the car and tape them together to return to the agency for his Plan B.

Cory, Andy, how did you feel about Mr. Pryce’s resignation? Did it hit you as much as me?

Cory: This season of Mad Men keeps throwing one massive event after another at me, and I wish I felt better about them. Much like with last week’s episode, “Commissions and Fees” features a slew of powerful moments, but also struggles to remove the hand of the writers in those moments. Clearly, I realize that every episode of television is written (well, except for Smash) and that the characters are not real people. However, a handful of great moments from this season of Men have been undermined by the very visible orchestrating done by the writing staff. Last week, I had trouble swallowing Joan’s choice and this week, the circumstances of Lane’s suicide and the surrounding events didn’t go down too easy either.

On one hand, Lane’s death makes a lot of sense. We’ve been discussing deaths, well, to death, and it became pretty clear that he was our prevailing candidate to bite the bullet. Similarly, I quite liked Jared Harris’ performance in every scene in “Commissions and Fees,” especially the one where Lane tried to make it all end in his new car. And obviously, that final sequence with Don, Pete and Roger pulling his body down and processing the events was one of the most evocative, disturbing and memorable bits in the series’ run. All of that stuff was great.

Nevertheless, two issues remain for me. The first is related to how convenient a lot of this ended up being. Lane’s wife buying him the car was a manipulative stroke, the bits about “life and death” related to Sally’s first period had me rolling my eyes and  Glen’s dejected rant to Don in the elevator simply laid the episode’s/season’s/series’ theme on WAY too thick. Mad Men isn’t shy when it wants to spell things out for the audience, but goodness Andre and Maria Jacquemetton took it a step too far. I don’t need to be beat over the head, especially by creepy Glen. The other issue I have with Lane’s death is that I’m not really sure why it had to happen. As we’ve said before, Mad Men isn’t a story where people must die, but this season it seems like everything was leading to a major one because, well, because. We certainly bought into that idea hard here in the roundtable, but now that I’ve seen Lane’s miserable story play out, I’m not sure it was really worth it. Which is likely part of the point, but still.

So again, here I am, my emotions wrecked by an event but my mind questioning its logic. Andy, your thoughts?

Andy: I guess that makes me the stone-hearted monster of the group this week. I too like Jared Harris as an actor, and think the nuances he’s brought to the role of Lane Pryce have elevated it above its consistently thin and sometimes disjointed writing. But I’ve never had much of an emotional reaction to him one way or another, so his death doesn’t resonate at all. Even when it became obvious where the episode was heading, I didn’t respond on a gut level until the moment when Joan attempts to enter his office. There was power in her reaction, and in Don’s and Roger’s and Pete’s. I’ll be interested to see how the fallout impacts them in the finale (and perhaps next season, depending on the time jump). As for Lane himself, can anyone really say they’ll miss having the character in the roster?

Not to claim divine knowledge of the Will of Matthew Weiner or nothing, but doesn’t it feel like the writers felt the same way on both counts? Of the “major” characters, Lane was easily the most poorly integrated with the rest of the core. They seldom knew what to do with him, so why not get rid of him. And hey, if you can do it in a way that accelerates the onrushing darkness and throws everyone else through another wringer, you’ve gotta do it.

It felt mechanical from start to finish, doubling down on the creakiness of the forgery plot that started us on this road. Is suicide plausible for Lane was we know him? It’s a petty, selfish, cowardly, and excessive act – so yes, absolutely. But under these circumstances? The tearful resentment he lobbed at Don was understandable and sincere, but with even an iota of reflection (and even Mad Men characters are capable of that much), he’s hardly in dire straits. Frankly, all things considered, Don handled Lane’s dismissal like a champ. A dignified resignation and a decent pecuniary cushion are more than enough for him to, as Don recommends, “start over.”

The whole thing irritates me deeply. I ask again, in the wake of what feels like a very cavalier decision to dispose of a disposable character – and not by packing him off to the Coast with a pocketful of Harry Crane’s cash, either – how dark can Mad Men go for seemingly the hell of it?

Plenty of other dark shit happened this week, of course, much of which I enjoyed somewhat more, but I’ll stop here for the moment. Cory, you brought up the very-active-this-week Glen – Les, how do you feel about Matthew Weiner sending forth his son to delivereth his message unto the masses?

Les: Oh, ugh. Glen Bishop’s a character I’ve never cared for in the slightest – his creepy attachment to Betty in the earlier seasons was a part of episodes I completely tuned out of, and I think the focus on that relationship poisoned the well of Betty as a character very early on. I was slightly more tolerant of his inclusion as time went on when he became friends with Sally, but that was only because it gave Kiernan Shipka a chance to interact with a non-parental figure, and I’d've been perfectly happy if his family moved away and never came back. And the writers seem to know that too – the instance where Don draws a blank on who he is and Glen has to spell it out was rather funny in its blatant attempt to remind us who this character was and why he mattered.

Come to think of it, “blatant” is the best word for how the character was used in this episode. We keep talking about the show being on-the-nose this season, but that last line of his to Don in the elevator about everything turns out crappy was blunt force trauma after the quietly unfolding heartbreak of what happened to Lane in the office. It wasn’t even that it was direct, but it was completely unnecessary to the message of the episode, only serving to give Don a distraction so he didn’t have to tell Megan what he’d seen at the office for a few more hours. And going back to his day trip with Sally at the art museum, that now feels like it deprived us of an afternoon that could have been spent with Megan and Sally and Megan’s redheaded friend spending the day together, a story that could have further complicated Don and Megan’s relationship had Sally gotten her period then and Megan’s forced to be more of an actual mother to her than she’s ever been. Instead, no, just a scene of Glen making random comments about Roosevelt killing all the animals in a museum and getting Megan to make him dinner.

It was so annoying I don’t even feel like talking about it anymore, so let’s go back to the issue of Lane’s death. I’ve been thinking a lot about it since it happened, and I think that the problem is similar to a lot of our problems with Joan’s decision last week: it feels like they chose an objective for the character ahead of time and then wrote back to it, so you can see the strings worse than in the Wonder Woman pilot’s fight scenes. I don’t find it implausible that Lane would do this – he’s been established as a man who’s been beaten down (literally in some cases) by his father’s influence, a meaningless cog to St. John Powell and PPL, and always something of an outsider to his American compatriots. But his particular woes – feeling meaningless to the agency, increasingly financially strained – only came in at intervals this season, came out of nowhere, and they were always secondary to the plots surrounding the three men who eventually cut him down.

So, this is now two weeks in a row where Mad Men‘s made some very big, life-altering decisions for its characters, where the means to get there was certainly clunky but the results in both cases were (at least to me) heartbreaking and fantastically acted. My question is: do you feel the results outweigh the process?

Cory: I’ve enjoy Glen precisely because he’s a creeper, just as his relationship with Sally has been quite entertaining to watch because it makes me so uncomfortable. I think I would have liked that portion of the episode much better had it not been part of this specific episode. Again, the whole life/death symmetry was slightly clunky, but their conversations are perfectly awkward and stiff.* Glen somewhat frustratingly describing the hassle it would take to visit Sally in NYC was charming in a super-weird, inappropriate dirty mustache kind of way. And truthfully, Sally rushing home to Betty gave Mrs. Francis (and January Jones) a nice moment or two of real emoting. As a separate entity, that story worked. But the loosey-goosey nature of that story clanked against the manufactured slog towards Lane’s suicide. Not the finest editing in the series’ history, that’s for sure. 

*It’s unclear to me if these conversations are so stiff because Weiner’s kid cannot act, because of the writing or both. I do know that I hate Weiner even more for giving his son major burn in such an important episode. That dude is such a life troll.

Les, I guess you’re right in some ways: Sure, it is logical that Lane as we’ve grown to know him would do this. He’s a character that constantly gives and anytime he tries to take, things end up going poorly. And recent episodes have certainly pushed him further into a corner. But I can’t let go of the feeling that this was all for naught. This season, even above all others, is one of misery and the easiest way to keep ratcheting up said misery is death. Moments into this episode, I was resigned to Lane killing himself and despite the quality work of Harris, Hamm, Slattery and company in those final moments of his life and initial moments of his death, I didn’t care that much, nor did I really see the point.

Perhaps this leads me perfectly to an attempted answer to your question. I think the jury is still out if the “results” are worth it. I don’t see Lane’s death impacting any individual characters other than Joan and Don, and if you take the events of the last two episodes together, it seems relatively clear that this is all supposed to spur Don on to do, or feel…something. The Joan/Jaguar situation seems to only be bothering him and there’s a possibility that he will feel some responsibility for Lane’s death (although if he does, I might have to question that choice). I’m not sure how comfortable I am with Weiner and company orchestrating seismic life events for other characters as a way to shape Don’s seasonal journey, but maybe that’s where we’re headed. And if we are, maybe this all makes more sense in retrospect. However, as it stands now, my skepticism is high. I expect Mad Men to value the process, not just skip to the results. This isn’t Glee.

Andy: I enjoy Glen in small doses, and his uncannny knack for flummoxing every grown-up he meets offered some of the only levity of the week. And his and Sally’s tedious museum date was a solid slice of cringe comedy. For that matter, Sally’s story as a whole was the sugar that made this bitter episode go down. Even when it veered into a serious and fittingly scary place, it came from a place of respect and warmth for the characters and their small but meaningful tribulations. It was rather achingly sweet to see her make a beeline for the arms of her mother, who just a day before Sally was yet again needling about her diet. That Betty is so stunned by even this modest show of affection from her daughter that it takes her three full seconds to return the hug was just icing on the cake.*

*And credit where it’s due: January Jones was pretty delightful this week. More of this Betty with some comic zing to her, please.

It’s possible I’m imbuing this minor story with too much weight simply because it was the one ray of light in the episode. But unlike Lane’s (and Don’s, which we have yet to hit on), it at least displayed a range of emotions. People sometimes connected, and sometimes disconnected. As opposed to the rest of “Commissions and Fees,” and most of “The Other Woman,” which both decided from the start to stab us in the gut and then chugged unrelentingly towards that goal.

Since I brought up Don, it seems a good time to ask what you guys thought about this latest step in his professional renaissance – specifically about the blunt, snarling pitch-cum-lecture he spews at the Dow Chemical team. Weiner Junior wasn’t the only one laying it on a bit thick this week, was he?

Les: We certainly seem to be in the midst of a Draper renaissance over the last few episodes. First he’s giving a speech to whip the troops into order, then he’s delivering a vintage Draper pitch not seen since the days of Sterling Cooper, and now he’s aggressively going after the “Moby Dick” of clients, the company whose head blatantly told him that he couldn’t be trusted. (And when the Devil himself tells you you’re untrustworthy, you tend to listen.) He certainly does lay it on thick, telling them that fifty percent of the market share isn’t enough and that he thinks their firm can make Dow dominate the chemical market as much as London Fog* dominated the overcoat market.

*London Fog. Bert Cooper was right, that’s a great name.

Unlike Lane’s decisions, this one I felt was very much in-keeping with Don’s reaction to the way things have been going. With Lane’s financial ruin, Peggy’s departure from the office and Joan’s drastic measures to secure the account, it makes sense that Don would feel he had to do something to exercise control over the agency’s future again. And while it certainly wasn’t a subtle speech – once again Don’s spelling out the show’s themes for us all to read – it was a speech he needed to give, as much for his own benefit as Ed Baxter and the Dow executives. (I also very much enjoyed the classic Sterling one-liners Don’s new fire inspired: “The guy who got hard at the word ‘no.’ I miss that guy.”)

The question now of course is what Lane’s passing does to that reawakened fire. Don certainly didn’t think what Joan did was the right thing for the agency, what does he do now that a man is dead? Is it more fuel for the drive to succeed and make it all mean something, or a realization that it’s not worth the cost? Given the way things are going this season, I’m inclined to believe the former.

Cory: Don’s certainly trying to re-exert control, not just over the agency, but his life. His speech to Baxter and company was impassioned and personal, but sort of uncomfortable to watch because so. Don has experienced some big highs and even bigger lows recently, but he quickly realized that it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough. We’ve talked a lot about how at the beginning of the season, Don seemed content and maybe even a little happy doing next to nothing. I’m not sure if it was Megan quitting, Ginsberg challenging him or a combination of both, but lately, Don’s snapped out of his lull and perhaps taken his inspiration and motivation too far. There’s no mention of Peggy this week, but surely that’s still eating him, and he’s clearly still upset over what happened to/with Joan. Thus, he’s filling the void left by the things he cannot control with things he believes that he can: getting people off with his pitches.

I’d say that Don is in danger of flaming out because he won’t stop to analyze the challenges he’s faced recently, but Don Draper never stops. If something else blows up, Don will just push forward. That’s what he does. As he told Lane, he’s started over a lot, and he’ll do it again. What I’m worried about is the wreckage that he could leave in the wake of the new beginning. 

Les: Wreckage does tend to be what Don Draper leaves when starting over, particularly in finales. In season three’s he blew up the agency to create SCDP, in season four he blew up his relationship with Dr. Faye to marry Megan – what’ll he do next in the interest of self-growth? To paraphrase his Jaguar pitch, what price would we pay? What behavior would we forgive?

We’ll have to see which of the tectonic plates are shifting next for our hero. There’s a marriage on rocky ground, a daughter coming to troubled maturation, a protege abandoning him and an agency driven to increasingly more desperate moves despite its success, there’s plenty of powder kegs to light off. And personally, I can’t wait. Until next week, when “The Phantom” brings this season to a close!

I couldn’t find a good picture of Glen Bishop’s mustache from last night’s episode of Mad Men, so I had to take a screen shot and it’s a little dark. Just trust me that it was there and it made him as creepy as ever.

Spoiler Alert: In an episode that included a man hanging himself and a young girl’s first period, Glen Bishop still made me feel the most uncomfortable.

He’s Baaaaaack!

Throughout the fifth season of Mad Men, our writers will dissect and discuss the happenings of each episode. These discussions will contain spoilers  from the most recent episode. In other words, read at your own risk.

To view our previous discussions, visit our pop culture page.

Vinny Ginardi: Ladies and gentleman, Roger Sterling is back! After finally separating from Jane, we see the Roger that we grew so accustomed to in the show’s first few seasons. He’s energetic, flirtatious, fun-loving and free. He’s even back to being passionate and outgoing about the agency.

But let’s get away from Roger for a moment and focus on Don.

Things seemed to be going fairly well all episode for Don (with the exception of the general disapproval from Megan’s father). He nailed the improv Heinz pitch, received an award, and appeared to be getting his advertising swagger back. But Ken’s father-in-law dropped a bombshell at the end of the episode, telling Don that nobody in the industry wants to work with him after he called out Lucky Stripe in the New York Times.

But I think this could motivate Don into becoming the advertising genius that we’ve seen all series long. This season, we’ve seen Don on cruise control at work. He’s lacked the passion that we’ve been accustomed to. And that’s why he looks so disappointed in the final shot of the table. He’s realizing that his newspaper ad might have backfired and that because of his lack of effort recently, SCDP might be up against it going forward.

The combination of the rush he received from the Heinz dinner and the harsh reality that nobody will want to work with him could be what it takes for Don to get his act back together at work.

Don has undergone a series of changes this season. He’s just not the same person that we knew from the first four seasons. But whether this is new Don, old Don, Dick Whitman, or some combination of the three, I think that at his core, Don is still extremely competitive. He’ll take this news and look to prove that even when all odds are against him, he’s still the best in the business.

Because some things never change.

Michael Cresci:  You son of a bitch.  I was going to end my post with “some things never change.”

This was an episode filled with things not being what they seem.  Success wasn’t what Megan expected it to be.  Nor is her parents’ marriage.  Abe’s proposal to Peggy wasn’t so much a proposal as it was a confusing mix of romance and disappointment.  Don’s award wasn’t the positive sign it seemed like, but rather a token of how deeply he may have screwed SDCP business wise.  Joan isn’t who she seemed to Peggy (“I’m just like everybody else”) and Roger wasn’t who Sally expected.  In fact the adult world wasn’t what Sally thought it was and all the gaudy boots and makeup in Manhattan couldn’t change that.

Since you started with Don I’ll just say briefly that it was nice to see him mostly happy throughout and supportive of Megan’s solid idea.  Old Don would have drunkenly plagiarized it and then belittled anyone who called him out on it. New Don is finding out that his wife is more than he bargained for, and he loves it.  Of course it all comes crashing down in the end but I guess that’s Dr. Calvet’s point.  This who business is fake; an illusion.  It’s bad for the soul.   (See Vinny, I also can use lines from the show to evoke poignancy.  Jerk.)

George Morris: Some things never change.  That being said, I honestly didn’t really care either way for Don this week.  It was a rather bland episode from him in my mind.  We got a look at him being a responsible parent, reading in bed and glad-handing some executives.  This was a nice bridge episode if nothing else.  I wasn’t overpowered with emotion this week (you can call me Glen Bishop if you feel like it).

What did stand out to me was the glimpse into the life of Sally Draper.  Sadly, she’s the sane one of the family.  It was only natural that she wanted to dress fancy and act all Cosmopolitan in front of the French people.  Vinny always gives me weird looks when I say how great of a character Sally is.  Honestly, she was by far the most revealing and entertaining person this week.

She dated Roger Sterling!  See, he does like ‘em young (please forgive me for that outburst)!  All kidding aside, she felt so trapped at the beginning of the episode that it is not surprising that she wound up getting to have an impromptu trip to Manhattan to play with the adults.  An adolescent in the 1960′s can make for some interesting storylines and Sally had about five different really important things happen to her during this episode.  She couldn’t just be stuck in that parent-less uber creepy mansion biding her time until college called.  Things are starting to pick up steam in her world.

Oh, yeah, she also saw Roger getting a blowie by her new grandma.  Had to get that out of the way.

VG: Sally’s character development has really picked up this season, but I was never sure why you were so fond of her prior to this season George.

In this episode, though, we Sally behave as many children do. She wants to rush through her childhood and become an adult (oh, naivety). She puts on a dress and boots and makeup and pretends to like eating fish even though we know and she knows that she doesn’t. She’s eager to be like those around her, but really, she couldn’t be much different from them. And at the end of the episode, in her discussion with Glen (hands down the worst character/actor on the show), we see that maybe, just maybe, she realizes this (which would ironically be a sign of growing up).

The Worst.

I want to switch gears and discuss Megan, though. We see in this episode that she actually can handle this job, but it’s not what she wants. She loves being with Don, working with Don, but you can tell from her conversation with her father that she has sacrificed her own aspirations (acting, if I’m not mistaken) for their relationship. Even when she experiences success in this episode, she doesn’t seem to be all that thrilled. Peggy was more excited about Megan’s success than Megan was.

If I’m remembering correctly, Peggy says something to Megan along the lines  of “This is as good as this job gets!”. When Peggy says it, shes genuine about it. She’s saying that the success and acknowledgement that Megan is receiving for her work is what is worth working for, and is the best part about the job. But I think it means something completely different from Megan’s perspective. I could almost see her thinking to herself, “This is as good as this job gets?”. Megan may be a good copywriter, but it’s a job that will be fulfilling for her.

MC: I’m going to be a real jerk and switch gears back to Sally.  I’ve always found her plots engrossing (hey George, I’m TEAM SALLY too) and her relationship to Betty to be an avenue for some strong character moments.  We tend to learn things about other characters through their relationship with Sally.  Betty is the most predominant (that is, Betty is a cold bitch) but Sally has also taught us about Don, Dr. Faye, Megan and now Roger.  I’m excited to see that switch flip and start learning more about Sally.  What sort of person does a Don/Betty upbringing create?

As for Megan, I think she’s learning that the job she’s chosen is inherently dissatisfying because it is artificial.  Even the pitch had to come from a moment she forced at dinner.  Megan is very genuine and we’ve seen a few instances where she hasn’t like the kind of people advertising creates.  This episode saw her realizing how empty crafting fake realities to trick people into buying things  can be.

GM: Yeah, Megan is learning this whole “business world” the tough way.  I thought her father had some valid concerns when he said that she basically skipped a step and got to the end of the journey too soon.  Does she still yearn to be anything but a copy writer?  I think she does but has been too caught up in the whirlwind of her new life that she hasn’t had the ability to think about her own needs.  Perhaps now that she is becoming more entrenched in the advertising world, she’ll see how unfulfilling it really is.

For me, it’s always fun to learn about Megan’s life.  This week we found out she’s quite a bit like her mother.  Although I was honestly expecting something more exotic from a French-Canadian family than just plain old spaghetti for dinner.  What makes this show so fascinating is its ability to analyze the interpersonal relationships of the various characters.  So many couples on the show have problems, and yet I want to see more of it!  The good doctor and Mrs. Calvet have  a unique set of circumstances where Emile dates a grad student.  Don and Megan just seem to have violent fights that end up in carpet sex.  All this time I thought the 60′s were carefree and fun.  This show tells me they were, but mostly on the surface.  For every bit of fun there is (making the big save on the Heinz account) there is something that seems to be disturbing or saddening (Megan’s realization that life is not as perfect as she thought it was.)

VG: Don’t forget about Peggy and Abe’s relationship, either George! It can be easy to forget that just one episode ago Peggy was pleasuring a complete stranger in a movie theater). And then in this episode, she thought she was going to get dumped only to be disappointed that he didn’t propose. What? Their relationship is as confusing as ever right now.

For my final thought, I want to look at the Roger-Pete plot (I didn’t forget about it!). What will their in-house competition be like now? Roger’s back and I’m not so convinced Pete will be able to plow through Roger to get to the top anymore. Thoughts?

MC:  I’ll keep my final thoughts brief for the sake of brevity.  Roger and Pete seems like less of a plot than it used to.  Lane punched some of Pete’s swagger out of him and he knows he still needs Roger for some of the old clients (Who he admits prefer Roger). Roger’s new found (or refound) swagger has me thinking he’ll do what he wants and when that means boozing up clients he will. When that means LSD and backroom sex acts, he’ll be all over it.  Roger Sterling is back, and I couldn’t be happier.

GM:

Up!

1. Don Draper- What a guy.  Made the big save with the Heinz executive and didn’t leave his wife in a strange place hours from home.  This is called making a change!  Even though we already went over earlier that “some things never change”.  Like Don being the best this episode.

2. Roger Sterling- New Roger kicks butt.  To Vinny’s point above, with the wave that Roger is on right now I think he will get in Pete’s way.  Now that he’s thinking clearly, he’ll be better with clients and make sounder business decisions than before because he seems to understandthings.

Will keep seeing more of Sally as the season goes on? George sure hopes so.

3. Sally Draper- Would have been higher had she not had those phone conversations with Glen.  She’s growing up right before our eyes!  How long until she does drugs?  I’ll say the middle of Season 6.  She also rates favorably this week for getting the credit for saving her grandma after it was completely her fault that the phone cord was there.

Honorable Mention: Pete Campbell- His role again this week was to the point.  He pulled the rope-a-dope on Mr. Calvet and stayed out of trouble.  Plus his wife is Trudy.

Down!

1. Grandma Pauline- She had the worst dive this side of Pete Campbell when she tripped and fell.  Is anyone else concerned that Betty and Henry are still MIA?

2. Glen Bishop- He’s super creepy and I’ve never liked him.  He is the anti-Ken Cosgrove.

3. Abe Drexler- We didn’t get too much into the Peggy situation.  What exactly is Abe trying to gain with these changes?  Is he just trying to buy some time?  They’ve been dating for a really long time and it just seems to me like he is afraid of the ultimate commitment.  That might be fine for the two of them now, but it’s not to best solution down the road.

Glen and Sally are apparently phone pals (the Skype of the 60s), and just as Sally is complaining about Pauline staying with her again while Betty and Henry are gone, Pauline trips over the phone cord that Sally’s strewn across the hallway and starts yelping in pain.

Megan’s parents, Emile and Marie, come to visit New York from French Canadia (just go with it, it sounds more exotic that way) bringing subtitled French dialogue with them. Megan’s socialist father obviously doesn’t approve of their wealthy, high-rise lifestyle. However, Sally and Bobby save Don from too much overt condescension by coming to stay with them because Pauline broke her ankle. Don still moans that Megan’s father doesn’t like her (duh, you’re the son-in-law), and Megan moans that her mother is competitive with her, even over Don (duh, your husband’s Don Draper).

In another exciting appearance of a secondary recurring character, Roger meets up with Mona for drinks as they talk about his impending divorce from Jane after his LSD-induced epiphany last week. Mona is probably easily my favorite secondary character. Mona is just witty and fabulous and Roger why did you let her slip away?? Anyway…Roger convinces her to set up some introductions so he can meet some more potential clients at the awards ceremony for Don with the American Cancer Society (for his letter against Lucky Strike).

Megan strides into Don’s office the next day with an ad pitch, and Don and all of us watching basically roll our eyes thinking, well this should be good. As it turns out…it actually is. Megan says they should pitch Heinz the idea that everyone’s been eating beans since the dawn of time, and everyone always will be; set to the nuance of mother and child eating together. Unfortunately they don’t got with the slogan “Beans are Forever” with a lyric-changed version of Shirley Bassey’s “Diamonds are Forever” playing in the background. Instead: “Heinz Beans. Some things never change.” Well done.

Abe calls Peggy and insists they meet for supper, despite Peggy’s busy schedule. Peggy confides in Joan, worrying Abe is gonna dump her—and it’s odd that she’s worried, since Peggy has apparently threatened a break-up just about every time they’ve had a fight. Joan, with endless advice, tells her, “When a man insists on a meal he has something important to say. It’s usually a proposal.” With new hope, Peggy picks out an adorable new outfit and meets Abe at Minetta Tavern. Peggy braces for the big speech and suddenly turns Southern belle bashful as Abe starts his proposal…that they move in together. At first Peggy’s still confident this is a marriage proposal, until she realizes, well, it isn’t. Her face turns cold, but she agrees to move in together. Abe excitedly asks, “Still wanna eat?” and Peggy stonily replies, “I do.”

Don and Megan and Ken and Cynthia Cosgrove meet with Heinz man, Raymond and his wife, Alice. In the ladies’ room, Alice drops the bomb to Megan that they’re firing SCDP from the beans campaign. Megan slips the word to Don, who is prepared to go ape on them, but instead Megan sets Don up to pitch the new commercial idea she came up with—and Heinz loves it. The next day, the whole office is celebrating Megan sealing the deal with Heinz, and Joan notices a ringless Peggy. Peggy tells Joan about moving in together, and Joan congratulates her (despite her initial “…shacking up?” reaction). Peggy then goes to congratulate Megan, who is weirdly uncomfortable with her success. Peggy tries to convince her how big a deal this is, and but Megan still doesn’t seem very chipper about it.

The next morning Megan, Marie, and Sally buy a new dress for Sally so she can come to the awards ceremony too. The focus swiftly changes when Megan’s parents erupt in a fight, apparently ignited by Marie catching Emile sneaking away to talk to “his newest grad student” (aka, affair) Claudette. Seriously, is there a single faithful marriage on this show? (No.)

Peggy and Abe plan a dinner to tell Peggy’s uber-Catholic mother, Katherine, they’re moving in together. As to be expected, Katherine is less than thrilled. She basically takes off the second they break the news, yelling, “He will use you for practice until he decides to get married and have a family!” Peggy is taken aback, and asks if she would prefer Peggy spend her life alone. Katherine suggests getting a cat (duly noted).

Roger arrives at the Draper residence as they all get ready to leave for the awards ceremony (Bobby asks, “Are you babysitting?” and…if only). Marie jumps to help Roger tie his bow tie—just as every glance in Downton Abbey means something, every touch in Mad Men means something. Something’s going on here. Sally comes out all dressed up (a little too dressed up for Don’s taste). Emile tries to comfort him with the best line of the night, “Don, there’s nothing you can do. No matter what, one day your little girl will spread her legs and fly away.” Don makes her take off the makeup and the go-go boots (but Daaaaad!).

They arrive at the soire and Roger immediately promotes Sally to being his date—Roger and Sally: the dream team. Roger adorably instructs Sally on how to be a business date, and Marie shoots some very jealous looks their way. Marie and Roger eventually meet up at the bar and Marie confesses she’s been watching Roger all night. They discuss living and loving life, and Roger relays his most recent philosophical realization, “At what point should you ever stop trying?” Marie coyly agrees, and replies, “I agree, we should have everything we want.”

Emile and Megan are left at the table alone, and Emile asks Megan if advertising is really her passion, or if she’s just pushing her dreams to the side in favor of Don’s (ah, so that’s why she was being so weird about the Heinz deal). Meanwhile, Don is told the everybody-knows-it-I’m-just-saying-it news that even though all the execs in the room admire him, no one will ever trust him enough to work with him after the stunt he pulled with Lucky Strike. To capstone the downhill turn of the evening, and in yet another segment of Things That Will Scar Sally for Life and Make Her Need Therapy Later, Sally goes looking for the bathroom, only to find Marie and Roger in an empty side room…”living life,” let’s call it. Late that night she calls up Glen, who asks her how the city is. Sally replies, “Dirty.”

A quick Wikipedia search tells me “At the Codfish Ball” spawned some controversy for its songstress, Shirley Temple, because a critic claimed the song and dance number was far too maturely executed, making then 8-year-old Shirley look coquettish and basically like pedophile bait. Sally almost made the same mistake—looking too old for her age—but in a rare move of good parenting, Don stepped in to fix it. Unfortunately on this show, it’ll take much more than a no go-go boots policy to preserve Sally’s childhood innocence.

Watch new episodes of Mad Men on Sundays on AMC at 10/9c. Next week’s episode on May 6 is a new episode entitled “Lady Lazarus.”

All images property of AMC.

If you’re not afraid of some spoilers, let’s talk about it…

We open with Glen on the phone, answering a call from Sally.

GLEN: Weeknight. Nice.

It’s a clever way of bringing him back into the series. Don’t waste time inventing a new way for him to appear; show that he never actually lost contact.

VOICE: Hey Bishop, who you talking to?

GLEN: Your sister. Just figuring out when we can ball.

Don is developing a relationship with his in-laws, the Calvets. They don’t arrive as a single character, but as two married people with their own tense dynamic. Don doesn’t have to please them so much as avoid becoming entangled in their own sniping. The Calvets have a tendency toward drama.

When we see Roger, we see that the LSD trip he had last time out was not a stunt to be forgotten, but part of his character development.

ROGER: I did have a, um, well I had a life-altering experience….My whole life people have been telling me I don’t understand how other people think, and it turns out it’s true.

ROGER: You know, it’s very interesting, but a lot of times you think people are looking at you, but they’re not. Their mind’s elsewhere.

DON: Lots of people that haven’t taken LSD already know that, Roger.

Megan starts to come into her own by coming up with a good idea for the Heinz account.

MEGAN: Heinz beans. Some things never change.

I definitely like the idea of highlighting women who have been kept out of the marketplace of ideas, and I suppose it makes sense for Megan’s intellect to come out in terms of advertising, given where she works and what the show is about. But I’d been hoping she’d be smart in a different way. Uh-oh — does that make me like Emile?

Emile is a doctor, but not that kind.

DON: When you have a high degree in any field, they call you a doctor. It’s from the Middle Ages.

Megan shows off her acumen even more at dinner out with the Heinz executive and executive wife, realizing that the account is about to be lost and prompting Don to make her pitch into his pitch, and right away. For Don, it’s a turn-on.

Peggy’s non-jealous reaction — in part because she’s got Abe on the brain, and in part because she’s a pretty smart cookie — is a nice twist.

PEGGY: What happened?

MICHAEL: Boss’s wife had an idea.

PEGGY: Is it any good?

STAN: It’s better than what we had.

PEGGY: Good for her.

Peggy discovers what Abe has on his own brain when he pops the big question.

ABE: I think we should move in together.

PEGGY (coyly): I mean, how would we ever do that?

ABE (obtusely): Well, however you want. I mean, I think your place would be better.

It turns out that Peggy is touched and excited, as the closeness matters more to her than the marriage license. They’re both very much ahead of the times for 1966. Peggy’s mom Katherine, not so much.

KATHERINE: I need my cake.

PEGGY: Why?

KATHERINE: Because I’m not giving you cake to celebrate youse living in sin.

Sally Draper is growing up.

Emile gives Don some advice, father-to-father…

EMILE: Don, there’s nothing you can do. No matter what, one day your little girl will spread her legs and fly away.

…while Roger treats Sally as seriously as he treats anyone, when they sit next to each other at an awards dinner.

SALLY: Who’s he?

ROGER: His name is Ed. He’s at Dow Corning. They make beautiful dishes, glassware, napalm…

Marie Calvet (played by Julia Ormond!) and Roger hit it off. What Sally sees them doing is the shock of the week. Not the act itself, of course, as Marie is demonstrating the carnal side of her life philosophy…

MARIE: We should have everything we want.

…but the shock of a ten-year-old having to see it. I trust that they didn’t tell Kiernan Shipka what she was reacting to.

There are some more cultured moments in “At the Codfish Ball,” including Don appearing to read. Twice! The first time, it’s Bernard Malamud’s The Fixer, in bed.

The second time, it’s do-it-yourself French language instruction, in the office.

At the end of the episode, we get Don’s disappointing realization that he may have burned too many bridges by that public letter he wrote telling off the tobacco industry. Indeed, no one feels like celebrating much, and there’s a group sense of despondency…

…as we wind up ending where we began, with Sally calling Glen on the phone…

GLEN: How’s the city?

SALLY: Dirty.

Despite the sadly fun endings, I found this to be a quiet episode. Solid, but not stellar. Loved last week, liked this week, looking forward to next week.

AMC first broadcast Season 5, Episode 7 of Mad Men on April 29, 2012.

SEE ALSO:
Polentical: TV in Review: Mad Men, “Far Away Places” (Season 5, Episode 6)
deerinthexenonarclights: Mad Men – At The Codfish Ball
Read at Joe’s: MAD MEN 5.7: “At the Codfish Ball”
Telephoria: MAD MEN: Scene of the Week
The Family Berzurcher: [Review] Mad Men, 5.07 “At the Codfish Ball”
I Might Have Thought What You Said…: Thoughts on Mad Men 507 At The Codfish Ball…

Freddy’s back too. I could take it or leave it. I would much rather the return of Ken or Sal. I have a feeling that from the sense of foreboding around the Lucky Strike account that Lee Garner Jr. might be taking his business elsewhere very soon. Perhaps Sal could return if Lucky Strike leaves although I do kind of like Joey, the new art guy. I also love any time that Joan gets to be in charge and show just how fabulous she is at making things happen. Joan getting the party set up was a great scene.

What I’m not loving is this new, pathetic Don. I get that a story would be boring if the character had no development or change but this is not development, its is a completely different man. We are supposed to believe that because of a simple divorce the way everyone in Don’s life views him is different? Don is the man who all the men want to be and all the women want to be with and yet in this episode he is called pathetic by one of the office workers, in last week’s episode his date wouldn’t sleep with him and in this episode Phoebe wouldn’t put out either. Side note – I hate the actress that plays Phoebe, I don’t know why. I was thrilled when they killed her off Grey’s Anatomy (spoiler alert!) and disappointed when she turned up here. I understand that Don feels differently about himself, obvious from the way that he interacts with Faye Miller and even the way she interacts with him by telling him not to worry because he will be married again within a year, but to go from a man as confident as Don was to this man is a huge leap, one I’m not sure I’m ready to take yet.

Next week’s preview – did it look like Joan was pregnant to anyone else? In the blue dress? She also looked a little heavier in this episode. I would love to find out if they pad Christina Hendricks up for the show. I know she is a curvy girl, but she always looks curvier in the show than in other appearances.

Mad Men the Morning After: “Christmas Comes…” for Critics

August 2nd, 2010

When it comes to critical reviews of AMC’s Mad Men, each week is more about understanding the nuances of the episode than ripping it apart. And this week, with very little from January Jones’ Betty Draper (who is the series’ most divisive character) and a welcome return for a few fan favourites, the critics are largely in holiday spirits outside of their understandable frustration with the actions of one Don Draper.

It may not be quite like Christmas morning, but opening the collection of Mad Men reviews in various tabs is sort of like opening presents, so let’s take a look at what came down the chimney.

First, as always, a brief glimpse of my own impressions about the episode for some context.

Cultural Learnings – Mad Men – “Christmas Comes…”

Just as every ad campaign is an opportunity for SCDP to sell someone new on their company, every character seems to be further under the microscope than ever before, and it’s resulting in a season which really focused on the characters even after the fairly plot-heavy transition between the two seasons.

I thought the episode was fairly strong, and also focused much of my analysis on Don Draper’s latest indiscretion, this time with his secretary. As Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune points out, this really does feel like one of his worst offenses, even if it no longer involves adultery.

The Watcher – Let’s Talk About Mad Men: Yule be Sorry

What was awful about that scene between Don and Allison is that he didn’t even know how terrible his behavior was. He had no clue that all he needed to say was, “Hey, things got pretty crazy last night. You’re amazing, really, but I don’t think we should let that happen again.” Just a couple of sincere sentences and Allison, who appeared ready to move on from the unexpected hookup, would have been fine. Everything would have gone pretty much back to normal.

I think “normal” was what Don was going for: he acts as if nothing has changed because I think that’s how he moves on from things, and he doesn’t understand that others need those moments of transition to properly return to the status quo. Mo captures the fact that Don’s actions were not a calculated effort to humiliate Allison, but rather a failure of social interaction: he doesn’t know how to let a girl down easy, and so he doesn’t know how his actions will be interpreted. He doesn’t realize how what he would normally do for Allison in that situation will become something with much deeper meaning, and it makes the entire situation that much more difficult to watch.

However, I will admit that I had not responded quite as negatively as others, like Jace Lacob, to Don’s treatment of Allison.

Televisionary – Christmas Comes But Once a Year on Mad Men

Allison’s smiles and warm manner indicate that she did think that this would turn into something more than just a professional relationship between boss and secretary, and yet Don seems to push her into the role of prostitute, acknowledging that he took advantage of her kindness yet paying her for her “services.” The look of shame and horror as she returns to her desk and reads the card (“Thanks for all your hard work”), before she begins typing a letter (her resignation?), are more cutting than any dialogue.

I will admit that the prostitution element of this story was not my first thought: yes, there is no question that he makes her feel like a whore, and that this is a terrible thing for a man to do, but I personally felt like Don tried. He failed, of course, his vague efforts to address their affair doing little to help Allison transition through this difficult situation, but he didn’t just leave the Christmas card on her desk and not even bother to show up (as we presume he could have). He might not have closed the door, but he still tried to talk to her, and I think Don’s failure here is more a lack of foresight (not understanding how the bonus, meant in good faith, would become a humiliation) than a lack of empathy – he knows what he is supposed to do, but he doesn’t know how to do it, and the result is that much harder to watch as a result. It’s one thing to see Don Draper make mistakes, but it’s another to see Don Draper with no idea how to handle a situation – he has had moments of weakness, but he’s never seemed this pathetic, and it’s something that affected almost all critics.

It also ties in with Peggy’s current dilemma, as she is more capable of acting on her decisions but struggles with discovering what is expected of her (which is, of course, the episode’s central theme, as explicated by Faye Miller). Nick at Monsters of TV looks further at Peggy’s position, and what she considers important in her life.

Monsters of TV – Mad Men – “Christmas Comes But Once a Year”

Saying that this cat is her first time means a constant string of lies. She later tells Freddy (who returns this episode to service a nice iconoclast) that she’s not sure if there’s a future with him but sleeps with him anyway despite Fred’s advice to not string him along. Clearly, her priority is not this guy but she angles for stability in the same way that Don needs it. Without the structure, she’s lost.

There have been parallels between Peggy and Don for a long time, but I think what’s interesting is how the two characters seem to negotiate ideas of power and control. In last season’s “Love Among the Ruins,” Peggy seemed to assert in her power in seducing a college boy, but then later in the year had that power taken away from her by Duck Phillips’ advances. Now, as Nick points out, it seems like Peggy is seeking stability over power, still wary of certain power dynamics and thus searching for stability by holding onto what power she has in the relationship. She’s willing to give up some power because she thinks it will help her balance things in the future: if Don is currently thinking too little about his actions, Peggy is thinking too much. Don sees his past, not his present, in Peggy, and the series continues to get good mileage out of using Peggy as insight into what Don would have gone through at a similar point in his career.

However, as Matt Zoller Seitz points out, Peggy’s experience is not only about her own anxieties over power and control; she also offers a window into the kind of social pressures which remain, especially amongst those who are “old-fashioned.”

The New Republic – Mad Men Mondays – Christmas Comes…

I get the sense that Peggy’s matter-of-fact pre-feminist resolve—displayed last week in the scene where she stood up to Don—was ground down by Freddie Rumsen, the onetime pants-pissing drunk who showed up at the struggling SCDP sober with “a present under my arm”—a $2 million Cold Cream account. His binary ideas for the account clearly hit a nerve: either you’re a married, “normal” woman with a husbands and kids or a lonely spinster.

The episode features a point about how the clients are no longer the sole focus of each advertising campaign, but those campaigns remain a key tool for the series. As Matt points out, Rumsen’s idea for the campaign lacks any subtlety: either you lure women in with the promise of marriage, or you lure then in with the promise that marriage will never come without it. There are no other options in his mind, and for Peggy that’s a terrifying thought. Despite the fact that her success proves you can break through such rigid expectations, I think Peggy is worried about her luck running out, of her opportunity ending before she can take advantage of it. It’s why she’s so worried about losing Mark: he could be the one as far as she knows, which isn’t very far at all. Just as Don doesn’t want to think he’s a type, and can’t imagine being married again in a year, Peggy doesn’t have any real images of her future, so to learn that parts of the world around her seem to better understand her future than she does is inherently destabilizing.

Another power play of sorts in the episode was the return of Glen Bishop, who uses some petty vandalism to try to woo Sally and deliver her from her growing discontent with life in the Francis household. Heather Havrilesky identifies this part of his persona, and rightly points out how unsettling it can be.

Salon.com: Mad Men recap – Innocence Lost

By messing with the Draper-Francis household but leaving Sally’s room untouched except for his gift of the twine-cutter, Glen not only shows Sally that he’s on her side, but he demonstrates an alternative to quietly tolerating the lives these careless adults dish up for them. If Daddy Don can’t be Sally’s knight in shining armor, maybe Glen can. Of course, anyone with that kind of focus can turn creepy on a dime.

I like the idea of offering an “alternative,” as Glen’s plan really is quite brilliant: as opposed to fighting with your parents, fight with their situation and force them to change their minds through indirect attacks on their current life choices. We’ve always seen in the past how it is external events, like the Kennedy assassination as an example, which destabilizes situations that might have otherwise gone in a different direction – Alan Sepinwall’s review, which I’ll get to in a bit, looks at how holidays like Christmas have the same function, even. Here, Glen creates the circumstances on his own, and Sally’s lost innocence (indicated by her letter to “Santa” going to Don) has been paired with a young man whose willingness to stir discontent could prove dangerous.

However, as James Poniewozik nicely captures, this storyline is that much more effective as a result of Glen’s history with the series – while it’s meaningful for Sally to meet someone like this, that it is Glen Bishop plays into his complicated past.

Tuned In – Mad Men Watch – Christmas Stalkings

But perhaps the most enigmatic and intriguing holiday return was Glen’s. His awkwardness and discomfort with the world—as he first showed as a kid bonding with Betty—has developed into eccentricity, bitterness (he’s quick to take offense at Sally’s ignoring him) and, it seems, a dangerous instability. (Kudos to young Marten for continuing to bring the creepy, something only compounded by the knowledge of his own dad writing this role for him.) And yet, the episode hints at the end, it’s still possible that they could have an actual bond; if nothing else, he offers himself as a guide through the scary process of divorce and remarriage.

Just as Sally is older than her years in knowing that her letter to Santa Claus is going to her father, Glen has always presented as someone who aged too quickly, and in his current form we see what a child like that could grow up to become. After his mother remarried, you can sense how Glen would become neglected, and you can see in Marten’s arresting performance the scars which his past have left on him. However, you can also see how he does offer an interesting service to Sally at this point, someone who has experience and who can help her navigate a tough situation. To this point, we have only ever seen Sally in relation to her parents, but seeing her start to develop her own world and seeing that world through her eyes rather than through her parents is a big step for the series. Using Glen allows for that to tie nicely into series continuity, and I’m with James that this is the most intriguing part of the episode in terms of how it will develop in the future.

Meanwhile, the narratives of power extend to Roger Sterling and Lee Garner Jr., as Alan Sepinwall points out in his review at HitFix.

What’s Alan Watching: Mad Men – “Christmas Comes…”

Roger lets Lee Garner Jr. bully him into throwing a lavish party the firm can’t afford, and then into putting on the Santa suit, posing for photos with men on his lap, and everything else, because SCDP can’t survive without Lucky Strike. And because we know more about Garner than anyone at the firm but Don, we can suspect that this particular form of bullying has a sexual component for him, even if Roger is likely unaware of that.

Alan’s review obviously expands past this single observation, but I like the reminder that we know more about Lee Garner Jr. than most of the characters do. When they started planning the party around women, I couldn’t help but remember what got Sal fired, and the series is often at its strongest when it pits our knowledge against that of the character. The Garner story was humiliating for Roger even without our additional knowledge, but the sexual component really makes it that much more uncomfortable, and I like that the episode doesn’t draw too much attention to it: as with Glen’s history, which is never expressly brought up in the episode considering that Glen and Betty never interact, our knowledge of the show works to add extra layers to those scenes which help to emphasize their meaning within the episode (in this case, expanding the embarrassment in ways Roger couldn’t understand).

And finally, sometimes Mad Men is about smaller aesthetic moments and production decisions, and these reviews are always helpful in capturing their impact. Ken Tucker at Entertainment Weekly points out one such moment during the office party.

Watching TV – Mad Men Review – I hate it here. I really, really do.

The office conga-line, led by Joan wearing the red dress “with that bow that makes you look like a present,” as Roger described it, was beautifully choreographed, especially the long-shot of the line passing behind a couple making out: It was like a lewd Norman Rockwell painting.

That entire conga line was just a beautiful piece of work: I love that Trudy was front and center (as she would be, considering her dance routine in “My Old Kentucky Home”), I love that Joan was leading it, and I agree that the long scene as they conga their way past the couple making out did make a powerful aesthetic statement. The party wasn’t outright debauchery, but the conga line captured the environment quite nicely, and made a nice counterpoint to Don’s quieter, and yet more disturbing, Christmas celebration with Allison back at his dark apartment.

Meanwhile, I don’t want to reduce Keith Phipps‘ great review down to its opening, but he looked deeper into the use of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” during the closing montage, which is something which intrigued me, and it’s a great bit of analysis.

The A.V. Club – Mad Men – “Christmas Comes…”

I’m not sure who’s singing the version here—maybe country singer Molly Bee—but like most versions performed by adults, it takes on a different meaning in a grown-up voice. Listening to it requires buying into the illusion of an adult singing from a child’s perspective while still recognizing that it’s not a child singing at all. It means believing an illusion and recognizing the truth at the same time.

I don’t really have much to add – it’s a great transition to a great review, so what more can I say?

Cultural Observations

• I remembered a note from Matthew Weiner in his post-premiere interview with Alan Sepinwall about how he felt that Allison was an integral part of the SCDP staff and that he was really taken with Alexandra Allesani, the actress – little did Alan know that Weiner was saying this while planning to humiliate her. It’s still not clear if that was a letter of resignation, but either way she’s been damaged quite a great deal.
• One common thread in numerous reviews: excitement over the return of Alison Brie, whose run on Community has really endeared her to the audience (she posted on Twitter her appreciation for the outpouring of support which came through the social network).
• This is going to sound weird for those who didn’t watch the most recent series of Doctor Who, but the image of Sally staring out her window holding the small token of Glen’s appreciation gave my flashbacks to young Amelia Pond staring out her window waiting for her Raggedy Doctor. I know that’s crazy, but it’s where my mind went.
• As many of you know, critics are no longer receiving screeners from this point forward, so these posts will not likely go up as quickly (as many critics might not post their thoughts until later Monday). However, I also don’t know how much time I’m going to have in future weeks, so there’s a good chance that these posts will either become much shorter (perhaps lacking in the extended analysis) or later in the week as a way to revisit the previous episode to prepare for the next one.
• And speaking of that, Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jensen has made Mad Men his latest replacement for Lost, doing some weekend analysis ahead of each new episodes. It’s a really interesting perspective that you don’t often see for the show, and a welcome addition to the wealth of Mad Men writing which takes place each week.

Christmas is a time that makes most people think about relationships, and in this episode we saw nearly every character’s romantic storyline get advanced. But true to form, the connections are muddled, messy, dangerous — ever the Mad Men way.

Don in Season Three's "Seven Twenty Three"

Don – This episode introduced two potential conquests for Don, Phoebe the neighbor-nurse (Nora Zehetner), and Faye Miller the aggressively probing psychologist (Cara Buono), but it was the dark horse secretary Allison (Alexa Alemanni) who actually made it into his bed — er, couch. In this episode, we see Don’s carefully maintained façade coming apart at the seams. Despite his previous infidelities, he always managed to keep it together enough to sublimate his misery into the picture-perfect life in the suburbs. But divorce has broken him, and over the last two episodes, we’ve seen Don begin to slip past the point of redemption into a seedy, greasy world of inviting hookers over for Thanksgiving. For the first time, we see him being openly ridiculed by a colleague (Joey Baird, whose eyes have been following the lovely Allison at the party, mutters, “He’s pathetic” when she leaves to bring him his keys.) It’s a reminder that the innocence of the 60s is waning, and that no one can live the high life for long without consequences. Like Freddy’s old ladies foolishly trying to recapture their youth with Pond’s Cold Cream, Don tries his same tricks, but with no results — he paws at Phoebe when she puts him to bed, and when Faye confronts him for walking out of her presentation, he boozily chuckles, “I thought you came in to flirt, but you came in to fight.” Instead of succumbing (though she clearly wants him), she psychoanalyzes him, reminding him he is a walking cliché: “You’ll be married again in a year,” she predicts, then, “I always forget. Nobody wants to think they’re a type.”

These are moves that would have worked for the old, married Don Draper, and probably still will eventually, but this round it is only the doe-eyed Allison, formerly one of the blandest characters on the show, innocent enough to fall for them. Like Pete’s secretary Hildy, who softened in season 2 when she learned he and Trudy were trying to adopt, Allison tears up when reading Sally’s Christmas letter aloud. A sense of compassion and kindness overcome her initial hesitation, and her postcoital beam is so painfully sincere even Don feels shame. Allison may be the most decent woman he’s ever slept with (aside from Rachel Menken, of course), and certainly the youngest. He comes as close to an apology as we’ve ever seen the morning after. “I’ve probably taken advantage of your kindness on too many occasions,” he says as he hands her an envelope full of cash. Her Christmas bonus becomes payment for services rendered, and Don proves he doesn’t know how to be with a woman in a way that doesn’t involve an economic transaction. He tried to buy off Midge Daniels with a ticket to Paris, his affairs with Rachel and Bobbie Barett started out with him trying to secure endangered accounts for Sterling Cooper, and even his marriage to Betty meant paying for her beauty with a lavish lifestyle. And of course, there’s last week’s prostitute.

I had assumed last season that coming clean to Betty would allow Don to turn an emotional corner, but instead he seems locked in a downward spiral. It’s unclear what hitting rock bottom would look like for Don after he has already lost so much–unless it’s a Freddy Rumsen-esque moment when his personal problems begin to overshadow his work performance–but these early episodes are giving us a peek of what we can expect of the season climax. Audiences have loved this show because Don Draper makes everything look easy. But if the show’s sleek star suddenly starts losing his edge, will fans still tune in?

Peggy – I hoped for a mature relationship for Peggy in season 4, and with Mark Kerney (Blake Bashoff) she is certainly taking a stab. But their conversation in her apartment makes clear he knows nothing of her sexual history or the child she gave up for adoption. Mark complains “we’re not doing anything I can’t do myself”; Peggy’s bed is covered in work (“that’s kind of symbolic”); he wants more. Peggy is skittish, emotionally and pragmatically, about going further, but she feels both guilty and offended when Mark attributes her reluctance to a false morality. “You’re so old-fashioned,” he tells her. “No, I’m not,” she replies.

Faye the psychologist tells Don her life boils down to a conflict between her true desires and what is expected of her. Peggy is in the same boat. But for Peggy, it also seems to be a conflict between modernity and traditional values. Freddy Rumsen, like a kindly uncle, advises her not to do anything with Mark until she marries him or he won’t respect her. But in the previous scene between them, Peggy berates Freddy for his old-fashioned approach to advertising, and life. Young women don’t want to look to older women for beauty tips, she says. (Peggy has a lot of nerve pretending she’s too good for Doris Day or Barbara Stanwick, but that’s another story.) Peggy doesn’t want to be bound by either tradition or others’ expectations, but she ends up hamstrung by both — in rejecting Freddy’s notion of traditional premarital sexual morality, she ends up giving in to Mark’s expectations. His patronizing “Do you feel different?” bodes poorly for their future. Peggy will never be satisfied in love until she finds a man comfortable with her intelligence and sexual maturity. Who knows? Perhaps in the very distant future, that could mean Don. He’s already calling her “sweetheart.”

Sally – Poor Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka) has been ignored by her family since the death of Grandpa Gene in early season 3, but mercifully she earns attention from an unexpected corner. Glen Bishop, the product of the only other divorced family on the show, emerges as Sally’s admirer and a wannabe juvenile delinquent. Glen seems eager to rescue women (perhaps because he himself is in such dire need of rescuing), and his break-in shows a certain chivalry. He seems to want to make a blow on Sally’s behalf, though not actually drive the Francises out, since that would mean Sally moving farther away. Glen’s presence offers Sally a glimpse of her future post-divorce. It seems likely these two lonely souls will turn to each other for comfort. With Sally on the cusp of adolescence and Glen played by Matt Weiner’s son Marten Weiner, a budding romance and future cameos seem all but guaranteed.

Joan – Though episode previews suggest it’s going to be all about next week, the flirtation between Joan and Roger heated up this episode. Greg is conveniently absent from the holiday festivities (“saving lives as usual”) and Joan shows up in the little red number Roger remembers (“the one with the bow on the back that makes you look like a present”). Did anyone ever look more fabulous at the head of a conga line? Planning a party Joan is in her element, and by entrusting the task to her (not Jane) Roger gives her a chance to shine. Dare I predict their reunion by episode 5? Better make it 7.

Lane – As I predicted last season, there seems to be tension in the Pryce marriage over Lane’s decision to put down permanent roots in New York with Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Mrs. Pryce and his son are in London for the holidays; it seems only a matter a time before she issues an ultimatum and Lane joins Don on the bachelors’ couch.

Finally, a word must be said for Lee Garner, Jr. Even worse than Connie Hilton last season, Lee Garner, Jr poses a threat because of the almost limitless power he wields over SCDP’s bottom line. Having gotten Sal fired last season after Sal spurned his advances, he now bullies his way into the office Christmas party and humiliates Roger by forcing him to wear the Santa suit (but not before casually asking where Sal has gone off to). With SCDP’s precarious financial state, Lee Garner, Jr’s boorish personality is a bomb waiting to go off. Now that Roger has shown how low he is willing to stoop to save Lee’s business, it’s only a matter of time before Lee ups the ante. Only with Sal gone, what is left for him to demand?

“Christmas Comes But Once a Year”

August 1st, 2010

“I don’t hate Christmas – I hate this Christmas.”

When Don Draper sits down to take part in a demonstration of a new form of customer research, he finds a questionnaire which asks him to describe his relationship with his father – the question, according to the Doctor heading the study, is designed to create a sense of intimacy which will then influence a more honest or meaningful answer to the following question about who makes household decisions. Of course, the test is not designed for someone like Don Draper, who has trained himself to shut down at the mere mention of his past – he walks out on the test because he cannot fathom that someone would want to return to their past in that fashion.

“Christmas Comes But Once a Year” is about what happens when people who are still running away from their past run smack dab into the present, people who are either so focused on not repeating past mistakes that other parts of their lives suffer or people who have lived so much of their lives covering up their past that they have no idea how to live in a present which no longer has the same rules. All of them are hoping that what they feel now won’t last forever: they remember happier Christmases, Christmases before their lives were thrown into a state of upheaval, and they hope that those Christmases will come again.

However, Don Draper also seems to think that it will happen without having to actually do anything.

It’s not a huge surprise that last week’s big moment for Don, revealing the story of SCDP’s rise to the Wall Street Journal, was not the beginning of a character transformation: we knew that moment was pure performance, more an appeasement of his colleagues than a real step forward into his new life at SCDP. And yet we wanted to see that he would learn something from it, that putting himself out into the spotlight would in some way change him: instead, he seems to be just as reserved as ever, sneaking out of the research meeting early and even slinking off at the Holiday party before he could get roped into taking a picture on Santa Sterling’s knee. You get the sense that, had he not left his keys at the office, he would have been perfectly content to leave that party behind, and to simply fall into bed and wake up in the morning with a hangover – this is not the predator we once knew, choosing his newest conquest and seducing her, but rather someone who tries to take what stands in front of him because he doesn’t bother not to. The wall around his past may be as solid as it’s ever been, but there now seems to be no wall between Don and his present – with no wife to anger, the sexual tension he shares with secretaries or neighbours becomes fair game, and so he seduces poor lovestruck Allison.

What I find so intriguing is that despite the fact that this isn’t adultery, I feel worse about this transgression than I did about many of his previous escapades. There is something about bringing that drama into the office which seems so much more short-sighted, self-destructive in a way that his previous affairs were not. In those cases, Don was smooth, careful to avoid his various lives crossing paths and working to compartmentalize; sure, his relationship with Rachel bled into their business dealings, and Bobbie was quasi-related to his work, but he’s kept those two parts of his life predominantly separate. In those instances, we felt like Don was ruining a marriage which was already ruined, but Allison was one of his most competent secretaries: she felt empathy for his situation, she bought gifts for his kids, and she even understands and doesn’t judge his anti-social behaviour. She was a normal girl, flirting with Joey the artist and hopeful that she could bring someone to the Christmas party (a girlfriend, it looked like), and yet Don didn’t take any of that into account. He slept with her because he wanted her, without realizing that he would be ruining their working relationship. He didn’t take advantage of her because she was his secretary (after all, he tried the exact same thing with his neighbour): he took advantage of her in spite of that fact, which, despite the act being quite familiar, seems quite unfamiliar considering his previous affairs.

Weiner isn’t coy about the episode’s central theme: it’s all about balancing what people want with what is expected of them. For Don, he realizes the next day that he has crossed a line, and to his credit he doesn’t act as coldly as he could have (even if his general disregard for emotions keeps him from actually navigating the situation properly). He can’t help, though, that his normal actions now have completely different meanings: what was once a harmless Christmas bonus becomes a potential conduit for a more meaningful greeting, his nondescript Christmas Card greeting going from a nice gesture of his appreciation to a soulless ignorance of their deeper connection. With Don still caught up in his past, both recent and distant, he has yet to understand that his present will soon become his past, and the actions he undertakes now could just as easily come back to haunt him. It’s a lesson he should have learned with his earlier affairs, but we see why he didn’t: back then, the ramifications were never so immediate, as he had lived so long hiding his affairs from Betty that there was almost no change in his daily life until she started to fight back. Now, the whole world is fighting back, and Don has yet to wake up and smell the coffee.

Don isn’t the only one: ever since the start of the second season, it has been clear that Don sees a lot of himself in Peggy, and here we see Peggy struggling in a similar way as she grapples with her sexual past while trying to take steps forward. We learn that she’s been withholding sex from Mark, and that she willfully allowed him to believe that it was because she was a virgin and not because her previous sexual relationships have made her feel used, taken advantage of (hence why the brief glimpse of her affair with Duck in the “Previously On” segment). She’s terrified of what Mark might expect from her, that giving into his desire for sex will somehow doom the relationship, and that continuing to withhold it will ruin what could potentially be a future for them and potentially leave her alone on New Year’s Eve. We don’t know enough about Mark to know whether his intentions are pure (let’s remember that happened with Joan’s Greg), but we do know that Peggy has reason to feel these anxieties. However, Peggy seems like she’s really carefully considering her next steps, tentative in a way which Don seems to have thrown out the window: she sleeps with Mark eventually, perhaps because the only thing that terrifies her more than getting used again is having no one at all, but it’s a conscious choice (perhaps because she wasn’t drunk out of her mind when she made it).

Seeing Freddy Rumsen walk into Roger’s office was one of two moments in the episode where you almost want to stand up and cheer (the other is Alison Brie’s return as Trudy, who just brings that out in me); the character left under poor terms, but he was always the kind of guy who seemed to be a decent sort outside of his drinking problem. Now, though, that seems to be under control: he’s gone through AA, and we even learn that he’s sponsoring one of his clients, and that side of his life seems to be on track. However, while he may have lived up to people’s expectations in that area of his life, expectations vary: while they wanted him to be sober, Peggy also wants him to be relevant, and his notions for various campaigns just aren’t cutting it. Like Don tells Peggy and Pete as they discuss Sugarberry, the company has been selling hams for a long time, and they won’t immediately know what to do with the sudden uptick which their stunt offered them. Similarly, Freddy Rumsen has been working in the business for a long time, and in putting so much focus on his personal life it is clear that he is not quite as progressive as he might otherwise have been; I love the way Peggy calls him old-fashioned as if is the world’s worst insult, a four-letter word in the advertising business.

This is especially true at a firm which is no longer dependent on their relationship with their clients, or at least shouldn’t be. Lee Garner Jr.’s presence at the company Christmas party (which exists solely for his benefit, as Lane had otherwise tightened the purse strings and cut it back to a quiet gathering with little to no excess) is a relic of earlier times, as the firm is forced to kowtow to his desires in order to keep him happy. It doesn’t matter what kind of work they do for Lucky Strike (which is perhaps why we haven’t seen a campaign for them in so long) – as with Sal’s unfortunate incident with Garner Jr. which resulted in his firing, here it is all about keeping the man happy through conga lines and Santa suits. Earlier in the episode, Peggy romanticized Roger’s job: he’s the one who gets to enjoy a booze-filled working lunch with the clients while she slaves away writing copy to impress them and, most importantly at the new agency, impress the world. Their advertisements are no longer simply designed to impress these individual clients, they’re designed to impress other potential clients who might see them and want to move their business to SCDP. The audience for the agency’s work has increased, and yet there are still moments where Roger Sterling is a man performing for an audience of one, the obnoxious man with the Polaroid camera and a chip on his shoulder. In those moments, there is nothing romantic about his job, which is why Roger has at times envied Don’s ability to slink away (and why he was so frustrated when Don refused to accept the responsibility of stepping into the limelight in the premiere).

The other side of the episode, of course, is young Sally Draper: while the adults are dealing with people’s expectations of them, Sally seems content to live her own life, which is something we’ve never seen to this degree in the past. While last week spoke to her conflict with her mother through Betty’s actions, this week we see Sally’s side of the story: we listen, for example, to Allison reading out her letter to Santa Claus, revealing that she has matured to the point where she is aware of Santa’s fictional nature but is maintaining the charade for Bobby and that she understands why it is that Don can’t come home for Christmas morning even thought she so desires him to. Meanwhile, her interactions with Glen (still played far too creepily by Matthew Weiner’s son) allow her to demonstrate how she (unlike her mother) wants to move away from the house – she doesn’t seem to have any anger towards Henry for replacing her father, but rather frustration with both of them for refusing to allow her to move on. There are points when Kiernan Shipka being asked to carry storylines all on her own proves a little bit trying, in that her lines read like exposition (especially during her phone conversation with Glen), but it’s worth it in the end. We see that Sally is actually dealing with the divorce fairly well, but she’s so caught up in it that she doesn’t realize just how creepy Glen’s behaviour (the burglary designed to hopefully force Betty to move out of the house) really is, and how his obsession with her is very much an extension of his previous efforts to seduce Betty – of course, we can’t really expect her to know better, as unlikely everyone else she’s only a child. While it may not be the smoothest of entries, we are now part of Sally Draper’s own little world, an important step for the year where Shipka becomes a cast regular.

When she talks to Don at the Christmas party, Faye Miller tells Don that the Glo-Coat ad was clearly about someone’s childhood – there’s no question that the ad is a reflection of what Don experienced as a child, but note that he talks about the ad in terms of its technique rather than its content. And yet, it is the technique which is changing Don Draper at this moment: his actions are the same, but the sort of compartmentalized life he once led has been removed in favour of a reckless lifestyle which will come around to bite him far faster. Just as every ad campaign is an opportunity for SCDP to sell someone new on their company, every character seems to be further under the microscope than ever before, and it’s resulting in a season which really focused on the characters even after the fairly plot-heavy transition between the two seasons. Thus far, it’s resulted in two strong episodes, so I’m hopeful that this trend continues

Cultural Observations

• Joan is yet again in the background, but I’ve got plenty of questions: for example, when she answers Roger’s questions about Greg by suggesting that he is “saving lives,” does this mean that she is maintaining the image that he is still a surgeon? She could be referring to his new position in the Army, but I would think that Roger would have known this if it was public knowledge, so I wonder what kind of secrets the office manager is keeping.
• Interesting to see Freddy return with more concerns about Pete: while Pete is one of the guys in some ways, Roger’s language seems to indicate that either he’s putting on in order to gain Freddy’s account or he too has reservations about Pete’s competency.
• Lane is another character still without much work this season, but the fact that his wife left for England for Christmas before he did would tend to indicate that she continues to feel little love for the city.
• Love the little moment where Harry, after being told that the cookies are there to indicate that they value his time, proceeds to place a high value on his time by taking three cookies.
• Unsure whether Rumsen’s less than progressive approach to advertising and his lack of respect for Peggy’s power are new or not: she obviously remembers him fondly from Sterling Cooper, considering the hug, but she’s changed a lot since his exit, and perhaps it is just that he hasn’t. It’s also important to remember that Freddy left before Peggy took his office, so he remembers Peggy from a point where her efforts to be a copywriter were more “non-threatening” in his eyes.
• Also on Rumsen: this is only vaguely implied, but was he taking advantage of his position as the Pond’s client’s sponsor in terms of bringing the account over to SCDP? While I know that we should be proud of him for making that leap, it still seems a little bit shady, and represents another form of mixing business with your personal life which could backfire (as it seems to when the client falls in Roger’s presence).
• No big shocker to hear that Bert Cooper and his research friend aren’t so much down with civil rights (or, as one calls it, socialism), but it will prove interesting the further we get into the decade.

Nick Marsh (vocals and guitar), James Mitchell (drums), Rocco (originally from Wasted Youth, guitar and vocals), and Glen Bishop (bass) formed the original line-up of the band. After signing to Polydor Records in 1983, bassist Glen Bishop left to join Under Two Flags, and was replaced by Kevin Mills (formerly of Specimen).

Their first album, Flesh for Lulu, eluded commercial success. They followed it up with Blue Sisters Swing (1985), recorded for their new label, Hybrid. The album cover featured two nuns kissing, which led to the album being banned in the U.S. and Europe. I find that astounding based on the content of other album covers that were sold and promoted prominently featuring t&a, among other “naughty” bits.

Flesh for Lulu didn’t let that stop them. They joined yet another label, Statik Records, and released Big Fun City later the same year.

“I Go Crazy” (from Long Live the New Flesh — 1987) is the song for which the band is most noted. It was featured in the movie Some Kind of Wonderful and as a result enjoyed limited airplay on American college rock radio stations. Flesh for Lulu took advantage of this notoriety and toured the U.S. It paid off; their 1989 LP release, Decline and Fall, charted in the top 15 of the Modern Rock Tracks chart. In 1990, they cracked the U.S. nut with a single “Time and Space” which landed solidly in the top 10 of the Modern Rock chart. Unfortunately, Flesh for Lulu seems to have run out of steam at that point, and called it quits.

This is a band that’s definitely worth listening to and adding to your 80′s music collection. I was delighted to hear some very solid tunes beyond their commercial success, “I Go Crazy.” Flesh for Lulu was far from the unfair label of “one-hit wonders,” working hard throughout the decade and creating music that should have given them the sales and credibility that they deserved.

Buy Flesh For Lulu music here.

Vist the official band site.

“I Go Crazy” via YouTube user LadyStardust06:

“Postcards From Paradise” via YouTube user torontokads:

“Restless” via YouTube user HeliosHelleborine:

“Subterraneans” via YouTube user hanman1:

“Time and Space” via YouTube user bahnscott:

80′s Discography

Flesh for Lulu (1984, Polydor)
Blue Sisters Swing (1985, Hybrid)
Big Fun City (1985, Statik)
Long Live the New Flesh (1987, Beggars Banquet)
Plastic Fantastic (1989, Beggars Banquet)

In “The Gypsy and the Hobo” I saw Jon Hamm’s face do things I’ve never seen before—he was laid completely bare as his defenses fell one by one to Betty’s questioning. And Betty was magnificent—I didn’t give her nearly enough credit in my last post, but she nailed Don to the wall. “You don’t get to ask any questions,” she snapped. Bravo! I held my breath when she left the room, wondering as Don picked up his box of photos if he’d manage even now to squirm away, but he stayed. She got 90% of the truth from Don—his appallingly sad childhood and even his betrayal of his brother Adam, all but details of his past affairs and the one currently in progress. We see latent class differences begin to emerge too: “I see how you are with money,” Betty says, “you don’t understand it. I knew you were poor.” “I was very poor,” Don admits. (If anyone is guilty of squandering money I would argue it’s Betty, but we’ll leave that for another time.) And most important of all, what I believe is the key to understanding Don’s self-destructive behavior: “What would you do?” Betty asks. “Would you love you?” “I was surprised you ever loved me,” Don responds.

If Don believes he is fundamentally unworthy of love—and why shouldn’t he, after a childhood of being told he’s illegitimate and unwanted?—then it would explain why he seeks refuge in sex and flirts with affairs one inch from tearing down the artifice of a life he’s created. Betty has certainly earned the right to her anger, but we see in her iciness (gradually thawing when she asks about Adam) a self-perpetuating cycle—Don has married a more beautiful version of the cool, rigid woman who raised him, and so seeks out warm, compassionate women like Suzanne Farrell. It is only when he senses he’s about to lose Betty, as he does in “The Grown-ups,” that he ceases taking her for granted and becomes the attentive husband she’s always needed. “It’s going to be OK,” he says as they dance, and he kisses her—but by then it’s too late.

Henry Francis proposes to Betty in “The Grown-ups”—a proposal predicated on three kisses, a handful of letters, and one violent box-hurling incident. He tells Betty “I’m not in love with the tragedy of this thing. I want it to happen,” showing a fundamental insight into Betty’s nature. Though their lack of physical intimacy may be a sign of the purity of their love, it also seems to indicate Betty’s cooler temperament and her preoccupation with the fantasy rather than the reality of their affair. Like a little girl playing the damsel in distress in the ivory tower, she wants to be desired from afar without having the relationship consummated—which might make Glen Bishop Betty’s ideal lover.

On the opposite end of the relationship spectrum we have Roger Sterling, all too prone to consummating his relationships. But then Annabelle shows up in “The Gypsy and the Hobo,” the long-lost Ingrid Bergman to Roger’s more light-hearted Humphrey Bogart, and she throws herself at him. And Roger turns her down. He claims Jane is the girl for him, but then there she is acting like a brat in “The Grown-Ups,” refusing to abandon the news for 10 minutes to listen to her husband’s toast. And then he calls Joan. What are we to make of all this?

I think the writers are preparing us for an eventual Return of Joan and Roger, while placing it in a proper context to give it some meaning. Roger displays the first smidgen of character he’s shown all season by rejecting Annabelle, and it’s clear he still turns to Joan to make sense of the world for him. Jane can’t do that; Mona never did. But if he’s eventually going to pursue Joan and have it mean anything at all, we first have to see him showing some reliable judgment. Meanwhile, Joan is finally beginning to second-guess her marriage; maybe Greg’s deployment to Vietnam will test his mettle in a way that definitively proves his weak character, and she’ll leave him. Or he’ll die a slow, painful coward’s death.

So where does this leave us for the season finale and beyond? When Betty tells Don that she doesn’t love him, he retreats to Sterling Cooper’s office, the one place where he feels moderately in control. But if we’re to truly see his world upended, that must come tumbling down too; given the finale’s ominous title (“Sit Down. Shut the Door.”), that might involve Conrad Hilton pulling his business just as Sterling Cooper goes back on the market. I’d like to see Bert and Roger buy back the company from the British, hire Lane Pryce as a supervisor, rehire Sal and Joan, promote Peggy and Pete, and reinstill a little pride among the employees. As for Betty and Don, I think Betty probably will explore things with Henry Francis for a while, and the writers have left the door open with Suzanne Farrell. But it’s hard for me to picture a show without them as a couple anchoring the center. Or a world where Don doesn’t have a secret life. Who’s he supposed to be now?

“The Color Blue” saw Don playing with fire—cavorting with Suzanne Farrell, only to discover that unlike every other mistress he’s had, she doesn’t like being shoved in the closet when it’s convenient. She’s naïve. She wants him to meet her brother, to spend the night, to chitchat on the train during his morning commute. She wants real intimacy, and she doesn’t appear to care what it costs either of them. For a teacher in a conservative community, she’s shockingly heedless of the danger her behavior poses to her own position, let alone Don’s. 

Then there’s Don’s equally rash decision to let Suzanne’s epileptic brother Danny (Marshall Allman) out on the highway rather than delivering him safely to the janitorial job in Massachussetts. Granted, Danny’s desperation reminds Don of his own, and he’s in no position to deny a kindred spirit the right to flee. And when he offers Danny a wad of cash and his card (“I swore to myself I would try to do this right once”), Don clearly is trying to make up for letting down his brother in season one. But does he really think Suzanne won’t press him when the institution calls up the next day, wondering why Danny never reported to the job? At least the internal stakes have been raised in their relationship—there should be a terrific explosion when Suzanne discovers Don’s betrayal, particularly if something happens to Danny as a result.

And speaking of explosions, or lack thereof—for an episode that finally answered a question that has sustained us through nearly three seasons (given that Don now bares his soul to anybody who comes along, will Betty ever join the club?), this episode felt surprisingly anti-climactic. Considering how Betty went ballistic last season at the revelation of Don’s infidelity, she responded to this blow with surprising stoicism.

Like Helen Bishop casually pawing through her son Glen’s treasure box in season one, Betty flips past the pictures labeled “Dick” and the duplicate dogtags, zeroing in on the house deed and decree of divorce—the latter, we know from last season, postdating her first meeting with Don. But it’s not clear Betty understands that her problems are much bigger than a secret first wife. And maybe it’s that long-suffering, been-there-done-that attitude that causes Betty to back down on the phone with Don after a brief rally refusing to attend the 40^th anniversary dinner. “What’s wrong?” I don’t think even she knows.

More interesting was Peggy’s behavior on the Western Union account, a “true blue” display of integrity if I ever saw one. Offered multiple opportunities to taunt Paul after his work falls short, she’s a picture of compassion and graciousness—and comes up with a killer campaign to boot. Paul is probably right that Peggy is Don’s favorite: she’s his mini-me, starting to get her own “my God” reactions every time she opens her mouth.

No such luck for Lane Pryce, who can’t seem to get either a “Churchill rousing or Hitler rousing” endorsement from his toad of an assistant. They’re setting Lane up for a very nice crisis of character, where he’ll have the opportunity to stand up to the British overloads trying to palm off Sterling Cooper to the highest bidder and his miserable wife. It’s no wonder a man as passive and put-upon as Lane relishes the opportunity to make a new start in America. But do Bert and Roger have enough capital left to buy back SC from the Brits and regain a shred of self-respect? Or will Duck Phillips finagle another acquisition for his new company?

And finally, a bit of Mad Men gossip. The Deadline Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke has reported that Kater Gordon, a 27 year-old former personal assistant to Matthew Weiner who was promoted last year to writer’s assistant and then staff writer, was recently fired  because Matthew Weiner had decided “their relationship has reached its full potential.” Incidentally, she penned both this episode and “The Fog,” and won an Emmy in September for co-writing with Weiner the season 2 finale, “Meditations in an Emergency.” Accusations of Letterman-esque improprietary are vigorously denied, as they should be. But I find it a little terrifying that Weiner promotes and disposes of his staff so quickly—a little like our British friends, no?

She and Betty get pretty up close and personal, (though it pales in comparison with Glen Bishop’s version of up close and personal. But enough about that). With Helen and Betty you certainly never feel that they connect. Betty hears a lot about a marriage gone bad. It is probably the first time she’s ever heard these kinds of details from a divorcée.

Later in the episode, Betty tells Dr. Wayne, (aka “Mr. Personality”) that Helen is likely jealous of her.

Wait. Seriously? Umm… didn’t Helen witness Don walking out on Betty at Sally’s birthday party a few weeks earlier? More than witness it; she was part of the rescue committee, what with her Sara Lee cake.

There is this one moment I love; Don comes home late, sees Betty and Helen sitting on the couch, gives a very brief and polite hello and then slinks up the stairs. I found it hilarious. So much unspoken from Don—What the hell could they possibly be talking about? Damn, she’s my type. Wow, she knows I ran out on my kid’s birthday party. I am SO not allowed to talk to that woman.

And somehow I felt like Helen got all that subtext, and was unphased. Helen is a bit like Joan in her understanding of men and their responses to women.

Also, both Helen and Dan, the ex-husband, address Betty’s denial with complete directness. I thought it was reeeally interesting.

He (Dan) is yelling for Helen to open the door excuse me miss, I know you can hear me. Miss?

1) Betty is walking Polly and sees Dan trying to get into Helen’s house, yelling and stuff. He spots Betty. Excuse me, Miss. Betty ignores him. I know you can hear me. Miss?

2) Helen comes to the Drapers’ later that evening. She offers up to Betty, I’m really sorry. I’m so embarrassed. Betty says, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And Helen… Yes you do. I was at that window. Helen’s tone is almost one of talking to a child. Like, Don’t give me that bullshit, I KNOW how many cookies there were in that jar.

I found the honesty (Dan’s and Helen’s) in those moments surprising and refreshing.

But then later, Betty had an honest moment that hit me almost the same way. Helen is asking her to babysit. She is due at Kennedy headquarters and I hate to back out because well, you know, New York state is so important.

To which Betty replies, I didn’t know that.

I love that.

Regarding the notion of not letting strange men into your home, I took a quick refresher peek at the Clutter family mass murder. Changed the United States, got everyone locking their doors.

But it was new, and not absolute. In an interview with Darby Stanchfield, who portrays Helen, she talks about the innocence of the times:

The thing that really struck me last season is that nobody locked their door in those days. If they locked their car keys in the car, you could just call on your neighbor. …I don’t even know Betty that well, I call her up and see if she’ll babysit. There was such an open and trusting environment, like there were fewer risks and less danger in terms of raising children.