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[Ed. note: due to unforeseen circumstances, the wonderful and talented Alex Blagg will no longer be able to cover Mad Men. We will miss him! But the show is still so great. So let's focus on the good stuff (the show) instead of the bad stuff (R.I.P. Alex Blagg).]
This week’s episode is told in three flash-backs…or is it flash-forwards? It is definitely flash-something. So we see Peggy in bed with a man (a man!), and we see Betty lounging on a sofa like she’s some kind of professional sofa-lounger, and then there is Don. He is face-first on a motel room carpet, beer cans strewn everywhere, a smashed newel post in the 60s-modern decorations behind him. And when he wakes up, his face is covered in blood! Don, why is your face covered in blood? But then he comes downstairs and he is not in a motel room, he is at home, and there is no blood on his face at all, or even any scrapes or anything, and Betty asks for his opinion on their new living room furniture, and you remember “Hey, I saw Memento. I’ll make it through this.” Don suggests moving the end table and lamp from one end of the sofa to the other end of the sofa, and the decorator is like “he’s an end table and lamp placement genius.” Duh, lady.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE OFFICE!
Conrad Hilton is waiting in Don’s office, and everyone knows about it and is going crazy. Sometimes it’s important for this show to remind us that despite how it may seem otherwise, this IS still a show about advertising executives. How else to explain the giddy excitement over a hotel developer waiting in an office. Don’t get me wrong, I am VERY excited about Conrad Hilton waiting in that office, I’m just not sure why I am so excited. Because if there are two things in this world that I do not care about, it is the day-to-day business of hotel operation, and fictionalized representations of deceased businessmen. WHATEVER, CONRAD HILTON! YAY!
Conrad gives Don some pretty serious office advice. Get a bible. Get photos of your family. Come to work on time. He is like professor office over there. But he also gives Don some pretty serious business. So, you know, trade off. After he leaves, the office breaks out into a round of applause. Remember last week when in that very same room a man’s foot was mangled by a riding lawnmower? No. Clap clap clap.
But it’s not all applause and forgetting gruesome tragedy. Because Sterling and Cooper are insisting on Don signing a contract. Uh, Don doesn’t sign contracts. I thought we all understood that. No contracts. The guy from England/Fringe is like “I’ve never seen anything like this. You get a raise, a signing bonus, and it’s only for three years.” Well guess what, Prince Charles, you’re in America, and there’s going to be a lot of things you’ve never seen before. Like straight teeth. And functional democracy. And Don doesn’t sign contracts.
Don is supposed to think about the contract over the weekend and have his lawyer take a look at it, but guess what he does instead? That’s right, he doesn’t think about it at all and he doesn’t have his lawyer look at it. You know why? Because it’s a contract, and we’ve been over this. Instead, he flirts with the teacher and stares at the solar eclipse.
MEANWHILE, Betty goes out for iced tea and apple pie with the guy she met at Roger Sterling’s party a few weeks ago, who it turns out is an important political adviser to Governor Rockefeller. Supposedly they are meeting to talk about the unsightly destruction of a local reservoir, or something, but obviously that is not what they are meeting about. They are meeting about flirting so much. In the phone call to set up their non-date, Betty agrees to make time on a Saturday (a Saturday! Scandal!) to meet with him, and before hanging up she gives a quick tug on one of Don’s desk drawers. Still locked. WELL TWO CAN PLAY AT HAVING SECRETS, DON, thinks Betty. After their non-date, the guy asks to walk Betty to her car, but she is not THAT big a fool. She knows what is proper and what is not proper. The man tells her to buy an antique fainting couch. Huh?
OK, but so, back at the office, Roger Sterling is frustrated that Don is not taking this contract thing seriously enough, as if he didn’t get the memo that DON DOESN’T SIGN CONTRACTS. He calls Betty and is like “Betty, I need you to make your reserved and obstinate husband do something he doesn’t want to do.” Oh sure, Roger. So Don comes home after yelling at Peggy and Betty tells him about the phone call and so he yells at Betty. So much dark-browed yelling this episode. They have some pretty serious words about the nature of power and their relationship and Don is like “goodnight,” and walks out the door with a drink in his hand because it was the ’60s.
He picks up some hitch-hikers out in search of some free love on the free-love highway. They’re heading to Niagara Falls to get married to keep the guy out of Vietnam (OR SO THEY SAY). They give Don some pills, because as hard as Don doesn’t sign contracts is inversely how hard he does take pills that teenagers hand him in the middle of the night while he’s driving. Like a boss. They go to a motel, and Don starts tripping balls. He sees his father. It is very intense. And that is when the kid punches him in the back of the fucking head. Yikes. This is no country for old men, you guys. In the morning, Don wakes up and all of his money is gone. And to add insult to injury, the criminals left a poorly spelled note.
To a man that makes his living with words, this is the cut that cuts deepest. He goes to the office and tells everyone that he got into a fender bender. Which is funny because when he was in an actual fender bender last season (that’s what you call flipping your car the fuck over, right?) he said it was something else. Oh, Don. Anyway, Cooper is waiting for him in his office with the contract, and he BLACKMAILS HIM! Oh my goodness. Don signs the contract and says that he wants to have no further contact with Roger Sterling. Uh oh. Trouble in paradise! The bloom is off the rose. When Don gets home he angrily tells Betty that he signed the stupid contract, even though as everyone knows, Don does not sign contracts, and then he storms up the stairs, hardly even noticing that Betty is lying on an antique fainting couch in the middle of the living room? Oh, Betty.
Also: Peggy fucked Duck Phillips. Twice.
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FUCK I didn’t WATCH THIS episode but I’ve HEARD EVERYONE freaking THE fuck out over IT. I’ve missed THE LAST few episodes though. WHEN DID Duck come BACK? (Full disclosure: I’VE ONLY seen the first GODDAMNED TWO because OF work/therapy).
ALSO, WHAT the HELL happened TO Bragg? NOT A COMMENT on your skillz, Gabe. Obviously I AM A fan of YOU.
Duck is working for another ad agency and is trying to lure Peggy and Pete over to him to get back at Don. Peggy keeps balking, because even though she wants more money she still feels all loyal to Don and whatnot, and in this episode Don yelled at her to stop asking for raises and the Hilton account and to shut up because she’s not that important. So Duck tells Peggy to meet him at a hotel for one last totally business-related chitchat and they end up banging, because Peggy bangs anyone who shows sustained interest. Now you are up to speed.
OH OKAY. I got\cha! I figure WE LOST THAT dick during the OFF SEASON BECAUSE HE couldn’t catch the ball, but NO ONE had mentioned SHIT. Also, I meant, BLAGG. Sorry if that UPSET anyone.
That therapy seems to be working.
Physical THERAPY, diaperface!
If Don Draper were to Kill Connie, would Paris Hilton cease to exist?
Also, 7.23.63, you guys! The Kennedy assassination is four months away in Mad Men time! My friend also pointed out that Roger’s daughter’s wedding invitations in the beginning of this season had November 22 as the date for their wedding. Maybe we can use Don Draper to stop Paris Hilton AND Lee Harvey Oswald! I’m just kidding. It was the mafia, not Oswald. DUHUHUH. ( Mad Men is totally going to make Kennedy assassination conspiracists come back. In your face, 9/11 truthers!)
AS SOMEONE who lives IN TEXAS (and replies to YOU TWICE in the same thread apparently), I have TO SAY THAT you have to BE WILLING TO let a lot OF SHIT slide to think OSWALD ACTED alone and THERE WAS only a single BULLET.
I love AmPat replies and can never have enough! Anyway, I too am from Texas (though I no longer live there — FOR NOW. RIP ALAMO AND ASTRODOME NEVER FORGET) and was kidding because Oswald totally did it alone. (But no one thinks there was only one shot — it was three or four.) Anyway, conspiracygum is for another day!
Now arthistorygum: if you ever have the chance, find “Eternal Frame,” a video that Ant Farm, an art group from the ’70s who did a lot of work in Texas including the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, made. They dressed up as all the participants in Kennedy’s car in the motorcade and re-enacted the assassination about 50 times in Dealey Plaza in one day in 1976, just over and over in a row. It includes the first multi-angle reenactment of Kennedy’s reaction inside the car, and it’s fantastic and very strangely funny.
A long time later I see a cowboy crying
“Hey buddy, what can I do?”
He says, “I lived a good life, had about a thousand women,”
I said, “Why the tears?”, he says, ” ‘ Cause none of them was you”.
Epic recap, Gabe. What happened to the Blagg recap, though?
Anywho, WHAT AN EPISODE! Don had to deal with two rich, old guys waiting for him in his office with the door closed, sitting behind his desk, in his chair – no wonder he reads Peggy the riot act.
Duck’s seduction speech was super gross. And his bit about “the taste of liquor on your breath” made me hate him even more than I did when he threw Chauncey out onto the streets of Madison Avenue.
AND NO JOAN! Surely, she can’t be gone for good!
I can’t deal with Joan being gone for good. Surely, she will be back.
And, Peggy, how could you?
Did anyone else love the Draper’s old-timey home phone number? Wilson4-8038. A thing like that!
And Bert Cooper is crazy like a fox. He can snap back from the chasm of senility when he needs to. Calling Connie eccentric was rich.
It’s pretty obvious that Peggy is simply attracted to power. She’s attracted to Duck because he’s allegedly powerful and holds sway – same goes for one Don Draper and she liked bangin’ that college kid in season 2 because it made her feel powerful. I know there’s a Sopranos comparison in here somewhere… Peggy is… Christopher Multisanti???
What is with the teacher? Seriously, Don was not flirting with her, and she kept at the whole “I know I’m hot shit and you want me” bit for WAY to long. Is she three shades of crazy? Or does she just assume every attractive guy who is standing in her general vicinity is hitting on her?
Yea, that chick was really presumptuous and forward and creepy (even though she was pretty much right). If there’s a bunny boiling in the next episode, we know Fatal Attraction was behind it.
washing down your drugs with a glass of hard liquor is sooo 1960s
I enjoyed Don’s chat with Sally’s teacher, in which he acts incredulous at the idea of ever fooling around behind his wife’s back. Be careful teacher lady, Donny D would fingerbang the shit out of you.
“Well guess what, Prince Charles, you’re in America, and there’s going to be a lot of things you’ve never seen before. Like straight teeth. And functional democracy. And Don doesn’t sign contracts.”
This turned me into Professor PissPants.
Goodbye Alex!
Woops, I mean
of course. A big 
!
Duck gave Peggy an Hermes scarf. Hermes, aside from being an elegant brand, is the “guide to the underworld of lost souls” in Greek mythology (thanks college .. and Wiki). Chances this is not going to go well: 100%.
He is going to give her the go-around her until one day he walks her to the lobby, unclips her leash, and never speaks of her again. R.I.P. Chauncey.
Dude…you went all Lost on us with the mythology. And this episode has flashbacks/forwards!
Sorry, guys. I have my own Sterling-Cooperesque day job, and let’s just say my foot got caught in the proverbial lawnmower blade. Also, you deserve better (Gabe).
When Duck fucks Pete this show will be interesting. We all know Pete is a bottom.
Clearly Don doesn’t do contracts but you know what else he doesn’t do? He doesn’t stare through a camera obscura at solar eclipses that only come along every nine years. C’mon guys, Chapter 2 of “The Aloof Ad Executive’s Guide to Being Apathetic”.
Brilliant.
I’m having Joan withdrawals.
Is it just me, or is Pete Campbell actually starting to be LIKABLE this season?
I think there’s a inverse correlation between Pete and Don’s likability. The more of a weasel Pete is, the more debonair Don is. And the more relatable Pete is, the more Don yells. I may have just Good Will Huntinged the show’s formula. Do you like apples?
ok, so my only problem with Mad Men is one that keeps getting worse as the show progresses: there aren’t any good relationships on this show. there are interesting relationships, and plenty of them. but there aren’t any good ones. no one truly loves or even likes one another on this show. every relationship is driven by an admixture of lust, envy, greed, fear, and fingerbanging. i know that this is the early 60s, and that a lot of marriages were awful, and all of that. but can’t someone on the show have a loving, healthy relationship of any kind – between friends, or co-workers, or even a parental one? i realize those aren’t as interesting, but the complete lack of them is causing the show to ring false for me.
What about Desmond and Penny?
Nice Oregon Trail phaseout of Blagg! He got sick and then R.I.P. Dysentery?
This was quite the epic-sode! Although when they did the split from bed to bed to bed I thought my cable with freezing. I like AMC’s attitude towards explaining things. “If they are smart enough to be able to find the AMC channel on their cable, they are smart enough to know time has no relevance in this episode.”
Don Draper has no use for camera obscuras; he has awesome sunglasses and adman aloofness that allow him to stare straight at the eclipse without consequence.
Can we talk about how Betty put her fainting couch in front of the hearth, which, as the mean interior design lady says, is the heart and soul of the family, where everyone gathers? Because Betty knows that what her family really needs is to focus on her disgusting, pathetic Bryn Mawr-educated, thwarted-anthropology-major, self-pitying, self-obsessed Scarlett O’Hara routine.
I don’t like Betty that much.
But it delights me that the old pitcher from Major League who puts snot on the ball is now Connie Hilton. Who’s got the good rum now, Jobu! Whee.
YES! I mean…it might have been a little obvious, but a) fainting couch – divan = awesome, and now her nicotine’d hysterics get front and center. Like her vagina over a handmirror, eventually (Fried Green Tomatos? Anyone?).
AND I am so glad you’re back doing these. They’re worth reading again.
However, I do not appreciate having the megahits of David Brent stuck in my head. “…the lovin’s free…”
“I was a leetle bit drunk.”
“I DAUNT AGREE WITTHAT IN THE WERKPLACE!”
Who says Jesus Christ can’t hit a curve ball?
I agree with you. Makes the show kind of hard to take, especially in the face of things like last night’s horror show (DUCK!?!?! EWWWWW!!!) It’s sad when I find it adorable that Pete caught Peggy when she fainted, that’s like the nicest anyone has ever really been to her.
Uh that was in response in response to Ward Stradlater up there… dammit. Great, I just accidentally posted a comment agreeing with myself, and here on my to do list for the week it says “avoid getting down voted on videogum.”
Aww the hell with it, I don’t sign contracts.
free-love freeway, Gabe. Let’s do David Brent some justice.
Wait, R.I.P.?? He’s dead?! Gabe, you’re my only source of pop culture news… You can’t make jokes about people dying. I will believe it.
Someone earlier said Peggy fucks anyone that looks at her. While this is true, her fucking Duck was the best. It was also the worst and made me gag a little bit, but it also rocked. But in the reactionary sense, it was brilliant.
First we have Pete practically in hysterics because Duck is paying attention to Peggy. Peggy deflects Pete by saying she won’t tell Don, and they both pretend it’s because Pete’s worried about Don finding out about Duck courting them. But everyone knows Pete is jealous. Duck’s not only paying attention to Peggy as well as Pete, but he’s paying attention to her at all (when everyone else at the office seems to ignore her and keep her out of the loop). So how does Peggy react to her former lover trying to control her behavior with a new “suitor”? She bangs the new guy. Booya Pete.
Then there’s Don who Peggy eagerly looks to as a mentor and an ally. Their relationship isn’t sexual, but she looks up to him. So when he tears her down in the meanest way possible, she gets back at him where it hurts, by getting into bed with his rival.
The biggest problem is that this being Mad Men, whenever I’m like, “Oh yes! This is exciting!! Give me more!!!” they decide not to fully address the issue, and it will never be mentioned again except maybe in some passing line two or three seasons from now. The scene will probably go something like this:
Don: Peggy, would you like to join me in drinking whiskey?
Peggy: I’d prefer vodka.
Don: You would. *pours Peggy a glass of Grey Goose*
Kinda spoilers in post titles aren’t something I’m a huge fan of, I think….
also, why do we have the same avatar? because we are both unoriginal, that’s why! (i’ll change mine soon).
“Maybe I’m late because I was spending time with my family, reading the Bible.”
Zing!
I literally laughed out loud at the Free Love Freeway Office (UK) reference. Also props to the guy above who remembered the verse to it.
Also no mention of Betty’s hands going down under while on the fainting couch?
Oh, and I forgot. Roger Sterling is one of the best characters of all time! They better have him and Don make amends
Okay, does anyone remember why Conrad “Little Girls Name” Hilton was even at the party in the first place? Why didnt the Rodge know about this dude at his party? Maybe he couldn’t see through all the blackface
I guess it was a big country club; he said (to Don) that he was at a wedding separate from Roger’s party.
Is Don still angry at Roger for hitting on his wife? I thought he got over that by making him puke after running up the stairs. ha, remember that? or is there something deeper that Don is holding a grudge over?
I bet nobody realized Peggy wore the same thing twice, even though she kind of made note of it toward Don.
I kind of loved that exchange. Don looks at Peggy. Peggy looks at Don. Both of them know that they have equally embarrassing reasons for their appearance (although Peggy’s is way grosser!). They move on.
I never knew that Don Draper was the first person ever to be drugged using roofies and date raped in a motel room. This is a very educational show!
Man, I NEVER thought I’d say this but…I miss Blagg.
I also noticed how Peggy patted her red vest at Don. Did she ever move in with that roommate or is she just visiting hotel rooms for now??
great recap AND comments this week you guys. i LOLstered real hard. and i don’t really miss blagg (yikes, sorry? it’s really a compliment to you, gabe)
if only the internet would get with the program and put those bootleg episodes online ASAP, then i could comment about the mad men recaps on time for once.
I can’t believe Baggs is dead.