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[Alex Blagg, formerly of Best Week Ever blog and Blagg Blogg Dot Com, and currently the editor of Wonderwall, will be bringing his wit, wisdom, and love of skinny ties to this season of Mad Men.]
Don will maybe pork Sally’s teacher later if he feels like it. After Sally takes out the pain of losing Grandpa Gene last week on some fat girl at school, Don and Betty are called in for a meeting with her teacher. But Sally isn’t the only naughty girl in the classroom, because when Betty excuses herself from the meeting for a few minutes, said teacher practically mounts Don after he makes some vaguely empathetic remark about loss or feelings or whatever. Don allows himself a brief eye-molestation of the teacher before Betty returns. Then later, the Sexy Schoolteacher places a brazen after-hours call into the Draper home, slurring about not even knowing why she called as she sips from handful of whiskey and lets her bra fall off. Don gives her one of his dismissive, “Very well. I’ll take humping you under consideration and maybe have my secretary get back to you about it at a later date, after my wife finishes having our third child.” Later, as Don is making himself his favorite midnight snack, skillet full of ground beef, we know what he’s really hungry for.
Frugal British bosses don’t like it when you fail to conserve precious office resources that start with the letter “p”. Pens, pencils, pads, paper and postage (thank god Post-It notes haven’t been invented yet): they’re just flying around the office all willy-nilly, as if Sterling-Cooper exists in some kind of decadent futuristic wasteland where office supplies can be easily replenished for reasonable prices at giant depot-like warehouses. And while Pryce is reviewing the expense accounts, trying to figure out where all the money’s going as he guzzles good whiskey, it’s noted that Sal spent an alarming 12 dollars more than Don during their trip a few weeks back. You know what else starts with a “p”? Pornography. Just sayin’, you guys.
Childbirth used to be awesome (for men). Back in the ’60s, men partied in waiting rooms with prison guards from Sing Sing and Johnny Walker Red while their wives had their nether-regions shaved and were given enemas so they could push new human beings out of their vaginas while other women let out tortured howls in the background. Later, nurses who sound like Simpsons characters would come in and tell the men that their wives were okay, their seed was strong, and they’ve got a new baby boy to carry on their noble family line. Meanwhile the wives would still be back in the delivery room having Demerol-induced fever dreams where their dead dads are mopping up blood and their moms hang out with a slain civil rights figures in the family kitchen. It’s just how things were then, so don’t judge Betty for hating her children, you monsters.
Admiral TVs doesn’t care about black people. When Pete has some kind of racist breakthrough about the profit potential of marketing televisions to African-Americans (of course Pete would be the ad dude who historically figures out how to exploit black people), he tries doing some off-the-cuff demographic research by asking the one black person he knows, Hollis the elevator guy, about his television-watching preferences. Surprisingly, Hollis seems more interested in the civil rights revolution that’s happening all around them than he does in tuning in to America’s Top Old Timey Reality Shows. So what did Pete learn from this? It doesn’t matter, because his forward-thinking cynicism was all for naught, as Admiral TV became furious with the very notion of black people giving them their money in exchange for televisions, and The Rodge threatened to drop-kick Pete off the roof just for proposing something so ridiculous. As Hollis the elevator guy so wisely and appropriately pointed out, “Every job has its ups and downs.”
Duck Peterson is back from the dead and Duckier than ever. He works somewhere called Gray now, which is apparently a place where people wear turtlenecks with blazers and says things like, “Have a nosh”. Duck tries to poach Pete and Peggy, saying that he knows about their secret relationship, then promising them untold riches if they fly the Sterling-Coop and join up with him instead. Pete will have none of it, and dances on Duck’s dreams of crushing Don Draper. Meanwhile, Peggy realizes that she’s criminally underpaid and hits up Don for a raise. He says they’re spending too much on those pricey office supplies to pay her any more than she already makes (but maybe if she plays her cards right, he’ll take her along next time he impregnates someone and gets to visit that awesome hospital waiting room again?). She says that it might be her time and goes to the ladies’ room.
Cliffhanger: did Betty smother her newborn baby boy on his first night home? Tune in next week to find out!
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I was laughing all until the last line, not because it isn’t funny but because I had never considered that and it is totally believable. Betty could definitely become Susan Smith of the 60′s.
“Later, as Don is making himself his favorite midnight snack, skillet full of ground beef…”
Hats off to you, Sir. “ROTFL,” as they say.
lets not forget the egg.
I haven’t laughed as hard at Mad Men as when Hollis pulled that absolutely perfect pun.
Also, why is Mad Men going Lost on us with the dream sequences and dead people and mysterious blood. I don’t know how much i can handle.
I think those were Betty’s hallucinations from all the drugs they used to give women during birth. google “twilight sleep” – fyi nothing to do with Mormon teenage vampires.
I love mystery blood!
I believe it was corned beef hash, not ground beef. Get your midnight meat snacks right! Also, Duck and Pete are stupid assholes.
I have nothing to add except that I enjoy these Mad Men recaps. Thanks Alex.
But what did YOU think about the epsidoe Alex Blagg??
“Gray” is Grey Worldwide, one of the biggest agencies. All the agencies they refer to in the show are real.
Also I don’t know if i just haven’t figured out your writing style yet, but the nurse was actually Yeardley Smith who does the voice of Lisa Simpson…
Professor Ad Agencies over here.
“of course Pete would be the ad dude who historically figures out how to exploit black people”…never have truer words been spoken/blogged, spbloggened? I wish I wasn’t expecting celebratory charlestons every time Pete has a small victory…they set the bar TOO high.
“of course Pete would be the ad dude who historically figures out how to exploit black people”…never have truer words been spoken/blogged, spbloggened? I wish I wasn’t expecting celebratory charlestons every time Pete has a small victory…they set the bar TOO high.
Dogs are known to attack Ducks… hopefully, when the bastard least expects it, Chancey races up, after a hard year surviving on the streets of Madison Avenue, and bites Ducks firmly on his hindquarters.
And then Duck can scream something like “Hell’s bells, Chauncey!” before he bleeds out.
Circle of life.
Alex, this recap was MAD FUNNY YO!
another letdown
Oh no! I meant that I let myself down by accidentally double posting about being letdown by the lack Campbell lindy hops but then it didn’t appear in response to my own double post and I’m just digging my own grave of downvotes.
Some other stuff:
Lindsay (RIP, Never Forget) suggested a while ago that Betty would share April from Revolutionary Road’s fate. I thought that too when Betty had the dream with her mother, father and (who we can infer was) Medgar Evers. ALL DEAD PPL! But she didn’t die. Oh well.
Also, in that dream sequence, she smashed the shit out of a caterpillar. Oh snap! Symbolism! For her arrested development(!) or how she suppresses her children’s growth, or a million other equally overwrought interpretations from an enthusiastic fangirl.
Also Pete’s line to Peggy (OMGTHEYHADASCENETOGETHER!) “Your decisions affect me.” That was brilliant. Layers, people. LAYERS. It was this episode’s “Limit your exposure.”
There were like 8 “Limit your exposure”s this episode, so freaking good. The whole first half when they were in the hospital was too good. “Your a house cat, your very important and you don’t have much to do”
I was so sure that baby would die! I guess he still could die, there are a lot of pillows Betty could use to suffocate him, but still! PPD, here you go, Betty!
Also, (OMGTHEYHADASCENETOGETHER!) was totally my reaction there. Deep interpretations, layers, etcetera, but mostly OMGTHEY’REINASCENETOGETHERFINALLYATLAAAAST.
Duck Phillips, fucker. God.
I think Don was whipping up some corned beef hash; hence, the addition of the egg.
Tardy to the meat correction party
Wait a sec there — meat correction parties weren’t until the early 70′s. Matthew need to get more authenticity right! and I think that car didn’t come out until six weeks later, so i broke my television
Why did that guy Dennis snub Don when he passed him in the hallway? They were like BFF’s in the waiting room. Did I miss something? Seriously, that has been bugging me all day!
My theory is that Don didn’t really have the conversation with Dennis. Remember a few weeks back at Roger’s wedding, when Don had that whole conversation with the old guy at the bar? Notice how in both these scenes, no one was in the room with them?
Is it possible that Don is hallucinating these conversations with strangers?
Yeah, but Yeardley Smith came in the room. Was she a hallucination too? Actually, that’s a plausible hallucination…not for the ’60s, but for now.
i think something bad happened to his baby
Alan Sepinwall (I like to whore around all the best Mad Men recaps) thinks that Dennis’ snub is because after stepping out of the waiting room (also, love all the liminal places – physical and metaphorical used in this episode) and into real life, he realises that he can’t/won’t live up to the promise he made to be a better man. I think it’s a little bit more than that. I think that what passed between them is that thing that sometimes happens when you are with strangers. Being with someone that knows zero about you and you will most likely never ever see again can be incredibly liberating and let you be completely open and honest like you can’t necessarily be with your nearest and dearest. I think seeing Don again when he never thought he would embarrasses Dennis. Not necessarily because he thinks he can’t live up to his words but because it reminds him of his earnestness which can be totally confronting and a little mortifying.
I love this explanation. Thanks!
I will have to check out Sepinwall’s blog.
Don probably had sex with Dennis’ wife.
That quick cut in the school scene made it look like Sally was wiping poop on her face, not blood. (I’m really sorry. I needed to vent about that somewhere.)
this show is becoming Twin Peaks! I can’t wait for the office to trade in scotch for coffee and pie
I will almost definitely sound racist at some point during this comment, but. I wasn’t sure what to make of Pete. I mean, yeah, sure, he was being characteristically sleazy, and I guess he was trying to exploit them. Yes, definitely, Pete was exploiting black people. But isn’t this an AD AGENCY based around exploiting EVERYONE? I probably missed some key subtlety, but why are two full seasons of pitching carefully-calibrated ads towards white people considered all a day’s work, but when Pete wants to appeal to a black market, it becomes exploitative and sleazy? Isn’t it ALL a little exploitative and sleazy? Advertising in Ebony seems totally fine and inoffensive. I thought Pete actually was being pretty un-racist in that he was interested in any market, whereas the Admiral television people didn’t want to appeal to the black community, and thought black people were just imitating those classy whites.
I think about this too much. Or too little.
Professional Expert Black Person here! You totally don’t sound racist at all.
IRL, the identification of Black people as a consumer group worth ad dollars DID happen around this time and began in Ebony and Jet Magazines, who surveyed their readers for things like income levels, discretionary funds, spending habits, etc – to prove to potential advertisers that Black people were, in fact, a marketable demographic. That PETE was the one to propose this in the Mad Men universe doesn’t surprise me.
It has nothing to do with his not being a racist. He would have proposed anything if he honestly thought it’d put him ahead of Ken. I wish the pitch had worked so we could have seen his little shimmy afterward.
Not to be all “remember the time when…” but I’m going to be anyway. In the first season, when the Sterling Cooper guys are working for the Nixon campaign, Pete is the only one who believes that Kennedy poses a threat, says he’s like Elvis, or some such. They all dismiss Pete, because, well, it’s Pete, but of course he ended up being right. That’s what I thought of during his Admiral pitch. He specifically said he wanted “integrated” ads. Somehow weaselly Pete is the most forward-thinking guy at S-C. I guess. I mean, Pete? Peggy is, as well, going back last year with the Jackie/Marilyn ad and this year to predicting the Bye Bye Birdie/Patio debacle.
In other news, poor Betty is a post-partum case if I ever saw one. Childbirth in the ’60s: Dope ‘em up, rip it out. Yikes.
Sally’s teacher is just another example that goes to show, apparently, that everyone in the 60′s was a fucking model.
@ Moonsinleo; yes, It was hash and eggs, not a “skillet full of ground beef…”
Jesus god welcome to Videogum brought to you by Coca Cola and HBO. Mercy.
You know, I’m not convinced that Betty squashed the caterpillar. She smirks as she closes her hand around the little grub but (unless it was just my shitty download) it’s not clear that she squishes the thing. SCHROEDINGER’S CATERPILLAR! I love that ambiguity because it lets you unpack from the scene everything that you wrote but also if she DOESN’T squash the catepillar but is just cocooning it then that also plays well against the fact that she is about the give birth to a new life/phase in her own life. Anyway, fan girl enthusiasm seconded. I really feel like the season stepped up a notch with this episode.
Uhmmmmm…. context! That was meant to be in reply to Becca’s comment.
SCHROEDINGER’S CATERPILLAR=well played. Quantum mechanicsgum!
By the way, the website of EBONY wrote a nice piece on how that mention came to be. Very interesting
http://www.ebonyjet.com/culture/index2.aspx?id=14598
Women still have their nether-regions shaved and get enemas before child birth.
The more you know.
Woah. I think there’s a lot of LWME’s (Ladies Who Majored in English) on this discussion board.
EMILFs? English Majors I’d Like to…nevermind.
As for the dream sequence, I was seriously waiting for a talking fish to tell her to take Don out on a boat and kill him.