This! Is! Mad Men! – The Beautiful Girls
[This! Is! Mad Men! recaps the newest developments of Don Draper and his ragtag group of cohorts. In the spirit of the show, it will often be sexist and drunk. Apologies ahead of time.]
Pre-Show Expectations:
I’m really curious to see what goes down tonight. If last episode is the beginning of a trend, its seems as though Don Draper might be on the upswing – boozin’ less, treating women with respect, and just generally throwing his life together.
The online preview hinted at some potential lesbian action from Peggy. I’m not dying to see this, but it would an interesting evolutionary step for her to experiment sexually. We already know that she’s embodiment of the more socially conscious, self-aware woman of the 1960’s. Maybe the Mad Men crew is going to spice this up further with girl/girl love. Who knows though?
What I’m hoping to see is some more Pete Campbell. He’s been on the back burner lately, which is a damn shame. He’s a smug, self-righteous rich-boy and I can’t get enough of him. Maybe he’s going to continue to develop into something worthwhile; or maybe (as Don’s foil) he’ll just backslide.
Viewing Notes:
Holy moly! Don and Dr. Faye Miller are together after all! We get a look at the pair post-coitus and neither of them seem drunk or attached. A step in the right direction for Donnie! Faye jokingly refers to Draper as Mr. Bond – I can’t help but think that if they ever turned James Bond into an American (which I hope they don’t), Jon Hamm wouldn’t be a bad choice.
Roger’s on the phone, trying to iron out deals for his memoirs. Is he really trying to push an autobiography of sorts or is he just finding something with which to pass the time? Did many of the advertisers on Madison Avenue try to publish books? This is definitely something worth looking up.
Joanie’s husband is officially going to Vietnam. Roger finds the news out from a third party and can only choke out “That’s not good.” I wonder if people realized what a royal clusterfuck that war was going to turn into. If I had to assume, I’d say it was probably comparable to my generation’s reaction to Iraq/Afghanistan. Or maybe I’m way off base.
Miss Blankenship’s wisdom:
It’s a business of sadists and masochists – and you know which one you are.
Joyce picks up Peggy and brings her to a bar. My predictions of lesbianism are thwarted when the dude Peggy smooched at that warehouse party shows up. Joyce peaces out and the two lovebirds start talking shop. He tells her about revolutions appearing on the horizon and she’s not entirely sure how much she can buy into at the moment. The dude tells her about how some of the companies she writes copy for are working against the Civil Rights Movement; she responds by saying that, as a woman, she has had plenty of her own problems.
It’s an interesting scenario – Peggy works for the Man, but had to claw her way up to do so. Of course she sympathizes with others who are struggling. Of course she wants everyone to have the same opportunity. But she’s not going to deny herself the satisfaction of having succeeded despite having the odds stacked against her.
//first commercial break//
Joanie thanks Roger for sending masseuses over to her house. There’s no doubt that the sexual chemistry is still there; Joan’s refusal of an evening out is an admittance of this. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this pairing.
Don gets called out of a meeting and is pretty pissed. But then he finds out that a kindhearted woman has brought Sally Draper to the office – she was hiding on the train by herself, just hoping to see her father. This of course results in a pissed off phone call to Betty.
Betty’s surprised that Sally made it into the city. With that being said, she sees this as a good opportunity to make her ex-husband’s life a bit more uncomfortable. She tells him he can look after their daughter until she comes into the city the following evening.
It’s kind of a shit move to use a child as a means of seeking revenge after divorce. But I suppose it happens all the time. Fugg.
//second commercial break//
Peggy reads an article that her suitor has written comparing Madison Avenue to Nuremberg. He can’t believe that she’s not flattered. On the one hand, why the hell should Peggy be pumped? He criticized her entire way of life, her business and her life’s work. On the other hand, the dude’s an idealist and doesn’t want his prospective lady to get wrapped up in a life of corruption and dollar signs.
Miss Blankenship is fuggin’ dead! In a hilarious turn, Olson tries to get the secretary’s attention but the old bag just droops forward onto her desk! Don then does his best to entertain the clients of the moment, hoping they don’t turn around to see Blankenship being wrapped up and dragged away by Joan and Pete.
Sterling and Cooper are both affected by Blankenship’s passing. Bert can’t stand to be around the body and Roger moves to his office to present his lamentations. The white-hair has dodged bullets before, surviving a couple of heart attacks. But now he’s genuinely worried that he is going to die in the office, a slave to the grind. He wants to go out for a drink with Joan and who is she to deny him this?
Draper comes home find Faye and Sally straight-up chilling. Certainly this isn’t the ideal construction of this scenario, but it’s nice to know that there may be hope for a future Draper family unit. Or maybe not – Faye peaces out and Don still seems annoyed at his daughter.
//third commercial break//
Roger and Joanie are out for cheesecake. Gahdamn, I love the idea of sitting around in a deli. Eating cheesecake. Drinking coffee. Smoking cigarettes (if I smoked `em). Roger’s wearing his heart on his sleeve, letting her know that their rendezvous were more than just sexual encounters. “Every time I think back, all the good stuff was with you.”
Sally’s grilling Don about Faye, running him through a gauntlet of questions in the hopes that he’ll admit she’s his girlfriend.
Walking home, Roger and Joan are held up at gunpoint. He gets them through it and they walk away with their lives. Once they turn the corner, they celebrate their lives and begin getting busy! Joan and Roger are back at it! Now I just wonder if this is going to be a one-time rekindling of the flame or the spark that starts a new inferno.
It looks as though we’re going to get another scene of Don jotting down his ideas in his journal. But at the last second, he pulls the pencil away from the page. He just doesn’t have it in him right now. After he wakes up, he finds Sally making him breakfast – she uses rum instead of Mrs. Butterworth’s, but the sentiment’s the same. It’s obvious that Sally wants to be with her father full-time and he can’t resist her persuasiveness. He agrees to take a half-day so that they can hit up the zoo. It’s pretty heart-warming.
Then, we get confirmation that Joanie and Roger hooked up. She says that she isn’t sorry for what they did but encourages him to remember that their both married. I think Roger’s more willing to go out on a limb – he doesn’t want Big Red to walk away and insists that they shared a moment.
//fourth commercial break//
Sally and daddy at the office! He’s definitely a proud papa, glad to be appreciated by someone that he loves.
Draper tells Ken not to impersonate the stutter of their client. I find this to be a great testament to his character. It’s easy to take pot-shots at the shortcomings of others. But that’s not Don’s style. He’s a classy gent. More importantly, Peggy starts to question why they’re working with a racist organization.
Sally throws a bit of a hissy-fit – she doesn’t want to go back home with Betty (not that I blame her). Dr. Miller tries to talk some sense into her, but she ain’t havin’ it. She books it out of Don’s office and then (literally) falls on her face. What a low-point for the Draper daughter, especially when things had been going so well. It really takes the wind out of my sails, so I can only imagine how Donnie’s doing.
Faye’s upset that she couldn’t make Sally feel any better. This leads to a sweet office embrace between her and the main Mad Man. The two resolve to have dinner that weekend and actually seem stronger for having gone through the whole ordeal. It’s refreshing to see things going well…but then again, I wouldn’t bank on it lasting too long.
Peggy, Joan, and Faye all share an elevator. These women are all in quite different situations. But they’ve all got love on the mind.
Post-Show Thoughts:
Great episode. It gave us love, laughter and heartwarming hope. Oh, and death. Rest in peace, Ms. Blankenship. Your tenure on Mad Men was short-lived but wonderful.