Monday, August 30, 2010
Television "Mad Men" Season 4, Episode 6
Posted by Marc Schultz on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 11:56 AM
- Michael Yarish/AMC
- Young Don and Young Roger will be played tonight by Old Don and Old Roger
Yes, this episode marks another defeat for the forces of subtlety in the Mad Men universe, but the show continues to entertain like nobody’s business. This one managed to be laugh-out-loud funny throughout, balanced against unexpected moments of suspense and pathos.
With the advertising awards banquet scheduled for Friday afternoon, the team takes the opportunity to get some real drinking done, especially Don and Roger. Inevitably, they’re called back to the office to get some work done, and Don’s drunk performance in the meeting with Life (“Enjoy the rest of your Life. Cereal.”) is a revelation: funny and charming while edging toward out-of-control and desperate.
But those conflicting qualities aren’t far from the surface in the flashback sequences we get from Roger, thinking back to when he discovered a charming but terminally eager Don working at a fur shop. Jon Hamm always seems less than convincing when playing in flashbacks, opening his eyes real big to indicate Young Don, but the scenes were excellent, reminding me of what I’ve been missing from the show, how far it’s come, and why: the drinking, the sex, the sexism, the repression, it can’t go on consequence-free forever. Contrasting hotel room scenes find Roger and Joan at perhaps their hottest ever (“When I wear it, I’ll think of everything that happened the night I got it”), while (in the present day) naked Peggy faces off against the naked art director for the title of Smuggest Bitch in the World. It's a decent consolation prize for missing out on the Clios, and a suitable indicator of how The Times They Are A-Changin: when everything’s finally out in the open, the faux free-thinking of artistic machismo is simply no match for the genuinely liberated sensibilities of the proto-feminist.
It’s also a great setup for Peggy’s confrontation with Don over his Life cereal tagline, “the cure for the common breakfast,” stolen from talentless job applicant Danny. After a great reveal, showing Don going to bed with one woman only to wake up with another—and realize it’s Sunday, not Saturday—Peggy’s on hand to inform him of just how far he’s fallen, from winning a Clio to cannibalizing the worst ideas of a rank amateur. Worse: Don can’t even outmaneuver the rank amateur in negotiation, giving in and hiring the bozo after failing in his attempt to pay him off (“I don’t have to buy it, I could just use it. Take the money”). It’s one thing to be shot down by Dr. Miller—this season, that’s just par for the course. But getting shot down by the unemployed 24-year-old cousin-of-the-boss's-wife? Joe’s assessment from a few episodes back—“pathetic”—reverberates hugely.
Especially in light of the final flashback: did anyone else get the feeling that Roger didn’t actually hire Don, that he intentionally got Roger too drunk to remember whether or not he hired him? That Young Don: so so smooth.
The cure for the common observational wrap-up:
— First of all: Congrats are in order! For winning all the Emmys. Along with the hatred of a gajillion Lost fans.
— “Oh, it’s an idiom. Did you know that?”
— “I told him to be himself. That was pretty mean I guess.”
— Who wore it better? I'm pretty sure that Dr. Faye Miller was wearing the same dress to the Clios that Anna Paquin was wearing to the Emmys.
— “Caroline, get in here, I think I finally have a work story!”
— “And that is all I can tell you about the next few weeks of Peyton Place.”
— Ducky's back! And now he's gone.
— Dig Joan’s little smile as Don and Roger each take one of her hands under the table.
— Pete’s gulped “Really?” in response to Drunk Don gave me my first Angel flashback.
— Oh and Cosgrove is coming back. I know Kenny has his fans, but I can’t say I’m that excited, except in its implications for Pete. For me, the subplot was worth it only for that moment when Pete leans back and puts his hands behind his head. Actually, I also liked the scene between Lane and Pete, when Lane admits he likes Pete: “I’m quite fond of you. It pains me to hear you say otherwise.”
— Also, I suppose it’s worth noting that the second woman in Don’s bed looks just like California Anna, and calls him Dick. Again: not a week for subtlety on Mad Men. (I won’t even mention the appearance of the Star Spangled Banner.)
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