* “The prestige that comes with ketchup.”
* Pete’s apartment: good for backroom deals as well as affairs. And Pete as part of the three-man braintrust along with Don and Stan? You know my soft spot for teamwork and rapprochement, so they sure were playing my song there.
* Dawn’s initial conversation with her friend was the first time Mad Men ever had two not-white people talk to each other, right? Is there a not-white-person equivalent of the Bechdel Test? But I think that was simply the most dramatic example of what this episode was about, which was how people who aren’t Alpha Males navigate the world built by and for Alpha Males. Dawn, Scarlett, Harry, Joan.
* Always nice to return to Joan’s apocalyptically orange apartment. She has an older sister? And she was married before?
* A good old-fashioned elevator door closing on Don shot. Love it. Love that Don seemed more intrigued than irritated by Sylvia’s refusal to tell him what she was up to.
* It’s easy to forget that Ken Cosgrove was once the biggest creep in his cohort, because now he seems like such a mensch, especially in comparison to everyone else but also, I think, because maybe he became one over the years. I mean, he is legit shamefaced that he just came into Harry’s office just to complain.
* “Harry has great ideas!” She’s not wrong, as far as it goes, yet Harry’s incapable of capitalizing on them in anyone’s eyes but his clients and the networks, I suppose.
* “So…Project K. What does it stand for.” “Project Kill Machine! “That’s not what it stands for.” Bob and Ginsberg, now there’s a dynamic.
* “I’m tellin’ ya, it clears the cobwebs,” Stan says, looking like he’s been awake for six days.
* “I think a hot dog and a hamburger are too similar. Plus, a hot dog cries up for mustard.” DON STONED
* Megan in a French maid outfit. You’ve got to be FUCKING kidding me.
* “Megan, I don’t care.” Don’s response when Megan tries to tell him about her storyline from an in-world perspective was hopefully completely devastating to anyone who’s ever worked in a creative field ever, or really just anyone who’s ever wanted to talk about the minutiae of their job and been shot right down.
* Casting Leland Palmer as a Dow exec is so next-level brilliant I can hardly stand it. Sell that, Don.
* Scarlett’s dress could not have been more orange.
* My favorite, laugh out loud, pump my fists in delight moment during Harry’s boardroom freakout? “No, please. Let him go on.” Roger Sterling just wants to watch the world burn. Of course, this fire got out of control.
* My least favorite moment? Pretty much every moment, after a certain point. Harry, you piece of shit. Going for the jugular of someone who really has nothing to do with what he’s so resentful about.
* So is Joan’s deal an open secret? Or is Meredith the mousy secretary made prominent in this episode because she’ll be the one who leaks it to the office? Or does Joan’s newfound self-confidence (as represented by a blue power suit instead of her usual floral-display palette) negate that whole potential storyline?
* Don’s against the war. It doesn’t surprise me that he is, but it does surprise me that he says so.
* “You’re worried about people hating what you’re selling.” Life!
* “I’m sure he’s a man who plays many roles.” Life!
* “Let’s go back to our pad, smoke some grass and…see what happens.” Don’s face during every second of the scene from that point forward is worth a price beyond rubies. I mean, the whole scene was marvelous, a head-on collision of two brands of debauchery from opposite ends of the decade, but watching Don Draper react to being propositioned for a foursome? Goodness gracious.
* I loved that the exec and his wife were basically “hey, it’s cool, don’t worry” and apparently meant it. I loved that Don’s lines around appropriate and inappropriate forms of sexual indiscretion are so bright and red. I loved the Drapers’ mutual bafflement that the swingers have been married for 18 years.
* “What did I say?!” “What did he say?” “He said I’d want you.” Phhhhheeeewwwwwwwwwww, that is sexy.
* “I was different than you, Mr. Crane, in every way.” BERTMERKED
* I don’t like that Joan feels forever alone. I mean I don’t like it for her, not I don’t like the writing. I want her to be happy, more really than any of these other assholes, since she is not an asshole herself.
* I’m not 100% convinced I buy her sartorial and attitudinal turnaround following the pep talk from her sister, but maybe that’s seeing such makeovers in a million shitty shows and movies talking, rather than how it works within the Mad Men context.
* Don serves Heinz another ad that isn’t there, another absence. There is no man at Royal Hawaiian. There is no ketchup in the Heinz ketchup campaign. In “The greatest thing you have going for you is not the photo you take or the picture you paint — it’s the imagination of the consumer. They have no budget. They have no time limit. And if you can get into that space, your ad can run all day.” What’s running in Don’s imagination-space all day?
* The great Heinz staredown. This is a funny show.
* OH MY GOD I JUST REALIZED THAT’S THE FIRST TIME DON SAW PEGGY SINCE SHE QUIT, OH MY GODDDDDDDDDD [they saw each other at the movies, I’ve been told 🙁 ] and he stops and listens to hear what she says and she quotes him and ugggggggh the FEEEEELS
(* sorry, I’ve been spending a lot of time on tumblr)
* “Heinz, the only ketchup.” Peggy tries to directly inflate their ego, Don tries to get them to have enough faith to let go of it?
* I saw an animated gif of Stan flippin’ Peggy the bird before I even started writing this.
* Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but when Ted tried commiserating with Don about the disadvantage their firms are at due to their smaller size, I wondered if there’s some merger storyline coming, so call me maybe?
* Don staring daggers at Megan following her love scene was deeply alarming. More alarming to me than the chase around the apartment after she disappeared from the Howard Johnson’s last season.
* “I’m sick of tiptoeing around you everytime something good happens to me.” Yeah, she’s got Don’s number.
* “You kiss people for money. You know who does that?” Yeah, Don’s got Don’s number.
* “I pray for you…For you to find peace.” I’m not optimistic.
Tags: Mad Men, reviews, TV, TV reviews
Peggy and Don met in the movie theater during the season finale last year.
I guess I find it easier to notice particularly good line readings from performers still new to the show, but James Wolk’s rapid-fire “How are things, Don” after Ginsberg’s “room with tinfoil on the windows” line was priceless anyway you shake it. Where, if anywhere, are they going with that character?
What Tim said.
Also: Ted McGinley as the swinger husband? Will Mad Men fall before its own hubris?
Also also: I’ve been saying every episode this season and several of last it was just a matter of time before Don and his younger bride met up with a swinger couple, and I’m thrilled with how it went down.
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You are a very funny writer, Sean T Collins.
If I’m remembering correctly, the “not-white-person equivalent of the Bechdel Test” is having two non-white people who aren’t related having a conversation that’s not about a white person.
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