* Jump cuts as Megan awakes without Don. You know, it’s just pleasant to see filmmaking, sometimes — the things that remind you of when you first became aware that the stuff on screen was the result of choices people made. And thanks to Scorsese I’ll always be a sucker for jump cuts within a single set of physical actions in a single physical space.
* Don curled up in…Bobby’s bed, or Sally’s? Either way.
* Lots of dark red in this episode so far. Uh-oh. Worse than the telltale orange, the eldritch salmon, of the last season?
* OH MY GOD KEN COSGROVE
* Seriously, I thought that was it. I thought they’d killed him. I’ve seen at least one critic scoff at that reaction, saying that’s not how the show works, but the show’s unpredictability is part of how the show works, of course. And dropping Kenny in the first few minutes is very Sopranos, too.
* Wow, that Nixon ad really directly presaged, or at least paralleled, the release of Night of the Living Dead that same month, didn’t it? Mayhem in black and white. Things fall apart.
* Don and Betty seem to be getting along great since their one-night stand. Maybe that cleaned the wound, I don’t know. Knowing these two I doubt it’ll last.
* Speaking of getting along great, Ted and Peggy are thick as thieves. I guess his blow-off didn’t take. Perhaps he redoubled his efforts after spotting Peggy’s rapport with Pete during their trip to Ocean Spray bog country.
* “You finally found a hooker who takes traveller’s checks?” “…why did I tell you that.” The open mocking of Harry to his face is endlessly entertaining, particularly since he’s actually good at his job — the partners just can’t help themselves anyway, such is their contempt for him.
* Rosemary’s Baby is back! (I really thought it was NotLD at first, but I’m not sure how many swanky midtown theaters that played in.)
* Don’s gonna fuck Ted because Ted’s fucking Peggy. (Or is he? I guess it’s not crystal clear. Actually it’s unlikely. But the principle is the same.)
* For the record, I share Don’s skepticism about using Rosemary’s Baby to sell children’s aspirin.
* Glad to see Ken escape death with just a faceful of buckshot. Glad to see someone, anyone draw a line around unacceptable conduct and refuse to cross it for love or money.
* I’d probably have been a much worse sport about the Sunkist/Ocean Spray switcheroo than Ted was, three times the business be damned. Did he know even then what was up? Is it just me, or is the irony here that Don would never have thought of screwing with Ted on purpose if Ted hadn’t already accused him of doing so when in fact he was only doing it accidentally?
* “I once had a client cup my wife’s breast.” The formalism of Jim Cutler. “Lee Garner Jr. made me hold his balls.” The ribaldry of Roger Sterling.
* So the Ted situation causes the Bob/Pete/Chevy situation, insofar as Sterling and Cooper join forces with Cutler to force a Cutler protégé on the account as a make-good.
* “You should watch what you say to people.” Uh-oh. Dark Bob. Pete, I fear you’re being out-operated.
* “I wanna be a grown-up, but I know how important my education is.” The education of Sally Draper continues.
* Sad lol at Duck Phillips still kinda implying he wants to work at SC&P. Nod of approval at Pete trying to get Bob headhunted out of his hair.
* Dark Bob en español! What exactly was he encouraging Manuel to do?
* I guess for the record I need to note Don’s baby impression and Joan’s yenta impression. They were funny. But mostly I was still wrapping my head around using Rosemary’s Baby to sell children’s aspirin.
* Seriously — surely the fact that that movie is really really scary, and that it invokes Satanism, was enough to make it kind of toxic for this kind of thing? Or do our perceptions of the film now stem from what we know about Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate and Charles Manson in real life?
* “This is as much for you to find out about us as it is for us to find out about you.” Sally’s a quick study, you’ll see, lady.
* “That Spanish fly!”
* I was not happy with the idea of Sally getting hazed. Fortunately it turns out she’s just hangin’.
* And now Don’s murking Ted left and right. Ugly.
* GLEN BISHOP’S BACK! HE’S BALLIN’! HE LOOKS GREAT!
* Loved Duck’s tall glass of milk.
* “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” “…I have.” The show doesn’t traffic in chill-inducers as a rule, but man, what a mighty, mythic exchange that was. Bob Benson, goldbricker.
* Great deep focus shots with Megan and Don. Again, I love filmmaking. Thanks, Orson Welles.
* Aw, Sally gets jilted. And then Rolo gets his.
* “You have to feel the conspiracy,” Peggy tells the client, never suspecting Don’s just sitting there being a conspiracy of one.
* “It’s a little bit personal. In fact it’s very personal.” No shit, Don.
* “This was Frank Gleason’s last idea.” He taints a beloved project even while saving it, dragging Ted’s friend into it, stealing the credit from Peggy. Absolutely brutal. A Draper pitch from hell.
* “C’mon. We’ve all been there. I mean, not with Peggy, but…” So mean! Unnecessarily! Don, Don, Don.
* “You’re not thinking with your head.” Sometimes Don’s lack of self-awareness can be stunning.
* Pete’s confrontation with “Bob Benson” was magnificent. “Well, for one thing, I wanted you to stop smiling.” Pete hasn’t gotten a hero moment like that in…ever? And Bob can’t help but be unctuous even when cornered: “You don’t respond well to gratitude.”
* Here’s the thing about Bob, though: If we believe both his romantic overture to Pete, and his story about how Pete was responsible for “hiring” him, that makes him not just a con man, but…kind of mentally unstable, right? As if the empty office and self-help tapes weren’t indication enough?
* “I’m off limits.” Now Pete has a secret weapon. To wield against whom? Does it matter? He kept the rifle around without ever actually firing it, after all.
* “My father never gave me anything.” Your ability to maneuver came from someplace, Sally.
* “You’re a monster.” I’ve seen a lot of people celebrate this line, this characterization. And obviously it’s true — Don deliberately dismantled people’s happiness in this episode, in a way that reminded me of, say, Tony Soprano deliberately goading his sister Janice into ruining her anger management. But I still feel a great deal of both sympathy and empathy for him, as I do for all the protagonist figures on shows like this, no matter how loathsome they become. They force you to walk a mile in their shoes.
Tags: Mad Men, reviews, TV, TV reviews
I think about your last comment there a lot. There is a lot to say about the remarkable power of art to create an avenue for both empathy and vicarious, disturbing thrill from anti-hero protagonists. But can you really say that you still feel that sympathy and empathy, regardless of how loathsome they become?
Its a fine line that storytellers must walk, when they create an anti-hero. How far can they push the character’s unsocial acts before they tip past empathy to revulsion?
For every Tony S, Walter W, or Man With No Name in the Dollars films, there are a dozen Dexters, Vampire Bills and Men With No Name in High Plains Drifter.
Where does such characterization go wrong? Too much pepper, not enough sugar?
With Tony Soprano, I think Chase really did have his eye on a scale, and was a master at peppering all evil with some good, some pain or some banality of Tony. Sprinkle, sprinkle, pinch.
With Walter White, evil started with a motivation that was so sympathetic. That’s no longer the case. Why does the balance still work? The whole Breaking Bad project is about the character’s transition from hero to villain! Now he’s a villain and I am still on his side?
In High Plains Drifter, Clint rides into town and rapes and murders senselessly for 15 minutes before being drawn into the town’s struggle as their savior. This fails to create any tension because of its obvious formula and its terrible sense of pace and timing.
Don is starting to lose me. Maybe because he’s no longer, as you’ve pointed out, so satisfyingly competent in any aspect of his shitty life. The shaking, tipping of Don’s evil/ sympathy scale is losing me this season. The rest of the show is so goooood that I am still happily on board, but not so much with Don.
Davey,
I’ve always felt Peggy and her evolution was the heart of Mad Men. Maybe I’m wrong in that Jesse in Breaking Bad fills a similar role and yet no one argues that the show is really about him. But still, while I’m with Sean, I’m comfortable if the show plays out a downward spiral for Don. He doesn’t really have to redeem himself in any major way for me.
Sean,
You got me to consider this episode a little differently, at least Don’s actions. When I was 12 or 13, I was called into the Principal’s office for making fun of a younger student’s pronounced overbite, calling him “the rabid rabbit.” Horrible, but the thing was, I was just recognizing my younger self in this kid. I had that overbite, and now I had braces. Often in life, I think we seize on weaknesses in others that we see in her selves, if only subconsciously. Another critic made good observations about this episode having a lot of mother-related material (Rosemary’s Baby/Sally & Betty/Don in fetal position), and I think on some level maybe Don was getting back at his mother through Peggy, the woman whose lap he once rested his head in. But also, I think Don is punishing Ted for his lack of self-control when it comes to feelings about a woman. It’s a way for Don to feel he is actually in control of his feelngs for Sylvia.
Sadly, nothing as awesome as the “Satan Rizzo” flub in this review… 🙂
Pingback: Mad Men thoughts index « Attentiondeficitdisorderly by Sean T. Collins