Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT No Good Deed Goes Unsexed
By Couch Baron | Season 6 | Episode 11 | Aired on 06.09.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Manolo the Spanish-from-Spain nurse brings Pete's mother by the office, and Peggy chats with her only to find she's mistaken her for Trudy – and that she's getting some action. When Pete learns that his mom is apparently banging the nurse, he tells her he's going to let him go, to which she tells Pete that he's always been unlovable. Pete calls Benson in to chew him out for his recommendation, but Benson tells him that Manolo isn't in love with his mother – because, apparently, he's into dudes, and so is Benson. Sadly, Benson's in love with Pete, who is not quite ready to return the sentiment. None of that matters, though, because I was right about the shorts. Also, Pete, Peggy, and Ted go out and get sloppy after an Ocean Spray meeting, and Pete clues in that Peggy and Ted have the mutual hots for each other, not that he disapproves. When Ted sees the rapport Pete and Peggy have, not knowing it's borne of their history together, he seems jealous; not only that, his wife tells him he's too focused on work even when he's not in the office. In the end, though, Ted seems to make the choice to stay with what he's got, which likely means Peggy's going to give Stan an even harder sell the next time she has a rat problem, which will probably be tomorrow.
Mitchell, Sylvia and Arnold's son, is in the apartment when Don comes home, and Megan tells Don the kid sent back his draft card in protest and now wants to run to Canada to avoid possible prison time. Don tells her from experience that the kid can't spend his life on the run, but soon a fit-to-be-tied Arnold shows up at their door, and he and Don go out for a drink, whereupon Don reiterates the sentiment we've heard from him before that he's against the war. Feeling a sympathy for the kid he probably didn't know he was capable of, Don goes to Pete and asks him to get hold of his old DoD friend (the one that buried the investigation into Don's past when they were courting -- I think -- Northrop Grumman) to see if he can get Mitchell a deferment. Pete suggests Don turn to GM, but when Don feels them out at a dinner, the reaction is frosty, to say the least. Ted initially chews Don out for this, but when he hears the problem, he offers to make a call to a highly-place military officer to get the kid into a pilot program – in exchange for Don working with him in the future. Don sincerely agrees, and then calls a grateful and tearful Sylvia, which is a much better ending to their relationship than anything we saw before. Or it would be, except when Sally sneaks into Sylvia's place to try to retrieve a letter her friend Julie left for Mitchell on her behalf, she catches Don and Sylvia in flagrante and runs off in horror. Later, it's a Dinner O'Awkward, as a drunken Don barely is home for five minutes before Rosen and Mitchell show up to thank him in front of a nauseated Sally. Don lies to her about what she saw, and she tells him she believes it, but her fatherly worship looks like it's gone for good. ABOUT TIME.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!...we cut to Don and Rosen in a bar, with Rosen telling him he's been meaning to visit him anyway before confessing he didn't even know Mitchell had left school, and Sylvia told him she didn't know either. "She's doing that a lot lately -- lying about little things." I wonder if he's counting the "smoking." He adds that he's known something's been wrong with her all year, and he probably wouldn't have to be such a detective if he'd actually been present for the times Sylvia screamed at "him." Don thinks there has to be a way out, to which Rosen bitterly replies that everyone's an expert on that subject, including Sylvia's father. "It's thrilling to see a plumber interpret international law." Don thinks Rosen's elite status as one of the top surgeons in the country surely has to be worth something, but Rosen -- a note of panic creeping into his voice -- says he knows a lot of people, but it doesn't change Mitchell's 1-A-ness. "He's on a damn list for the rest of his life." Don, unsure of what to say to that, offers that on some level, they should admire Mitchell's idealism, but Rosen -- approaching his wit's end -- tells him Sylvia won't let her baby rot in jail for a cause before asking what Don would do. God, "WWDDD" is not a slogan I need to contemplate. Rosen remembers that Don was in the service and asks if he saw action, and Don takes a loooong moment, probably trying to figure out how much he wants to reveal, before settling for saying it was very different, and he wanted to go... until he got there. Even though Don goes on to declare the war morally wrong, Rosen talks for a while about service being part of being an American and how he and Don understand that, and he's not coming out and saying it, exactly, but it sounds like he thinks his son is a soft mama's boy. Well, he does actually say "soft" explicitly, but then he tries -- not entirely successfully -- to hold back tears as he adds that Mitchell's the best, and Don looks like he might be moved in spite of himself. I mean, I'm sure his immediate solution will be to order another round, but still.
Nan is sitting in bed watching TV when Ted comes home, and it's clear she's got something to say -- Ted was supposed to have dinner with her and the kids. Ted doesn't know what the big deal is about one missed meal, but Nan reminds him what the minister at Gleason's funeral apparently said about God turning the lights off at any moment. "You know where you're going to be? The office." Ted assures her that the hours he's working are due to the merger, but she A) denies that and B) tells him that even when he's home, his thoughts are elsewhere, "and I can feel how disappointing this all is compared to your battles at work." This goes on for a bit, and Ted eventually hangs his head, to which Nan says she just wishes he liked being home more. Ted's like, I already bowed in submission, woman? What more do you want?