* Ah, so this is what a non-tour-de-force episode of Mad Men looks like. I’d almost forgotten!
* Due to the domino effect of no longer having advance screeners for Game of Thrones, I didn’t get to watch this episode until last night. Though I deserve an honorary degree from a prestigious university for my achievements in dodging Mad Men spoilers on Twitter all day long, I still managed to gather that this episode’s q-rating was lower than normal among critics. You probably don’t need to look any further than the presence of the woman in the second shot of the ep to figure out why, but beyond reflexive Bettyhate, I really do think there was simply a bit of a comedown from the astonishing “Mystery Date”/”Signal 30″/”Far Away Places”/”At the Codfish Ball”/”Lady Lazarus” run. “Dark Shadows” didn’t have a setpiece or a grand unifying theme or a psychedelic ’60s touchstone or a particularly impressive visual palette or even (despite the title, despite Betty’s shocking act of vengeance) the ominpresent sense that something awful is going to happen — it was just an hour of good television involving complicated characters, centered largely on one who most viewers dislike. But we’d be blessed if this were the baseline of quality for this or any other show.
* The Rise of Ginsberg. To swipe a line from his namesake, the best mind of his generation. To swipe a line from Rizzo, read the rest of the poem, you boob.
* I was so entertained by Bert Cooper’s brief return to the spotlight — checking his watch to measure the length of Roger and Jane’s marriage was a particularly lulzy moment — that I didn’t even notice how much I miss him as an eminence grise. He’s mostly a figure of fun for the SDCP gang, now. I mean, he always was, but he was also gnomic and intimidating. Now he’s the guy who says “don’t start the meeting without me” after the meeting has already ended, the guy who quits the company in disgust one season but is back the next like everything he’d done and said was meaningless.
* I miss Betty, too. Yeah, big Betty fan here. I have no desire to wedge my feelings about her against those of everyone who dislikes her so much, because then I’m never really sure what it is I’m actually responding to, the character or the conversation. But, it seems to me like including one character who doesn’t grow, who doesn’t change, who if anything seems to get more childishly vindictive and unhappy no matter what her status quo is, is not a lapse but a contrast.
* And she was given the episode’s emotionally strongest material. I can hardly imagine how devastating it must have been to see that her distant, damage-causing husband was writing beautiful little love notes to his new wife over nothing at all, over going to the store to buy lightbulbs. Like, I gasped, went “woof” out loud for her. Then I did it again when she revealed the existence of Anna Draper to Sally, a crazily impulsive and dangerous and mean and traumatizing thing for her to do. What the fuck, Betty? Then there’s the dynamic of her at Weight Watchers: when things go bad, she loses. Then when things go bad, she doesn’t. Let me tell you something, you don’t have to have a recovered anorexic wife to learn what a terrible idea it is to tie your eating and your body directly to negative circumstances…but it helps! She got the best physical beats, too: Crumpling up Bobby’s drawing and throwing it at the garbage can but not even getting it in, chugging the Cool Whip then spitting it out, slamming things when she realizes her plan to drive a wedge between Sally, Don, and Megan failed. And she got that wonderful line, “I’m thankful that I have everything I want, and no one else has anything better.” I have a hard time understanding how you could be bored or impatient or dissatisfied with the Betty material, to be honest. It’s razor sharp.
* Haha, looks like Betty didn’t need Don and Megan’s tag-team Cool Whip pitch at all! Just taste it, indeed.
* “Why a pig?” “I don’t know, but everyone laughed.” Rizzo and Ginsberg reveal the essence of art.
* Great dynamics in that scene that introduces Don and Ginsberg’s competing pitches for Snowball, too. Rizzo brown-nosing, Ginsberg passive-aggressing, Don coming on just a little too strong (“There’s a 95% chance you’re thinking ‘snowball in hell’”), Peggy reacting to three guys with whom she’s intensely competitive but whom she also appears to like. When I think of Mad Men as a rich show, this is what I’m talking about.
* So many wonderfully revealing, fleeting facial expressions in this episode. Don rolling his eyes at himself for coming up with “sinfully delicious.” Betty flashing a “hey, wait a minute” look in the eyes when her Weight Watchers counselor refers to “skinny people” as a group that doesn’t include her. Jane lighting up when Roger offers to be her sugar daddy again. Peggy’s gleeful smirk when Ginsberg loses to Don — angry take-no-prisoners Peggy is the best Peggy. Roger’s sad-sack mien when he apologizes to Jane for “ruining” her new apartment, someone who’s play-acting at being sad in hopes he’ll actually feel it. Maybe he could take crying lessons from Megan?
* “So, you suddenly have no problem telling people I’m Jewish?” Is Jane talking to Matthew Weiner?
* This week in Ominous Orange: Betty’s stranger-in-a-strange-land comportment as she enters Orangeworld, i.e. the nu-Drapers’ apartment. The red-headed Dark Shadows auditioner skewering Megan as a one-percenter, then bringing up the coming Thanksgiving holiday so portentously it was like she was talking about Megan’s coming execution. And best of all, the GIGANTIC empty orange couch in Pete Campbell’s office when Beth pays her sexy visit, subsequently revealed to be the location for his sensual daydream to treasure forever.
* Speaking of: jeeeeeeeez, Alexis Bledel. I didn’t even mind her digitally removed nipple. Well, okay, I did, but not much.
* Every line in the Roger/Ginsberg meeting was a fucking scream:
“…and murder.” “…You’re not coming to dinner.”
“Normal people. You know what I mean. People like me.”
“It has to be cheap—” “Surprise.”
“Bring me your best by sundown Friday. (I have done a little research.)”
Yeah, there basically came a point in that scene when I just started transcribing it. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to get the initial stuff about Roger wink-wink-nudge-nudging about his LSD experience, too.
* “The thrill of having poisoned us from 50 miles away.” Megan had the right of it and Don knows it. They both apologize to each other, and they both mean it. Love this couple.
* Gene Draper is ADORABLE in his footie pajamas!
* Don’s done pathetic things in his personal life from time to time, and from very early on — think of his panicked attempt to ditch everyone and escape with Rachel Mencken in the first season. But spiking Ginsberg’s superior idea for Snowball is the first professionally pathetic thing we’ve seen him do. His confrontations with Pete, Duck, Hilton, Ted Chaough, and the loss of Lucky Strike all made him look stronger and smarter. This makes him look weak and defensive.
* If you…are thinking…of opening…the balcony doors…DON’T!