Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Devil You Know
By Couch Baron | Season 5 | Episode 9 | Aired on 05.13.2012
Betty gets home and if you're wondering where her head's at in the wake of seeing Don's new pad, she runs to the refrigerator, sprays some whipped cream straight into her open mouth and then moves to the sink and spits it out. Betty, given the drug culture of the time period, I feel compelled to inform you that there are more fun ways of taking your mind of your troubles than using that can.
In a pitch meeting in Don's office, Peggy throws out the idea of featuring Sno Balls in a takeoff on a New Yorker cartoon; it's okay, but it needs work and when Don points that out, her defensiveness is fairly unwarranted in my opinion. Not having the energy to take her on though, Don moves on to Ginzo, who hilariously skewers Peggy by starting with "As much as I hate following another comedian" and then pitches his idea in a more LCD way than the drawings seemed to indicate, with merely "someone" that kids hate getting hit in the face with a snowball "and maybe a pig." Regardless of the lack of nuance, he gets some laughs and Don then advances the devil idea and it actually plays in the room, but the triumph is tempered by Ginzo being like, "It's nice to know you haven't forgotten how to do this job, old man." The kids file out and Don looks kind of mystified at the behavior of these whippersnappers and it probably wouldn't even cheer him up to know that Stan is 37 in real life.
Speaking of people who feel like they've seen better days, it's time for a Weight Watchers meeting and after a couple of women get weighed in front of the class with mixed success, the... teacher? lets them know that the meetings are a way for them to share, to unburden themselves so they don't turn to food to solve their problems. Prodded by her neighbor, Betty offers that she had a bad week "out there" after a good week "in here" and goes on that she felt a lot of things she wishes she hadn't while in an unfamiliar place, but she still managed to lose half a pound. This garners her some applause, so I can't blame her for not going into detail about the whipped cream.
In her apartment, Megan is reading a scene from a soap opera (Dark Shadows to be exact... there's your title tie-in!) with some redheaded woman and whether it's due to the terrible writing or melodramatic acting, Megan quickly breaks, laughing as she asks who the hell "this woman" is. Here scenemate, however, is shocked that Megan would cast aspersions on any of it. Megan, I don't know if they told you, but lack of humor about your craft is something you might as well start getting used to from idiots like this. And speaking of things she'd better inure herself against, when she tries to say that they used to laugh about audition material like this, the "friend" stands and replies that it's just so easy for Megan to criticize from her grand pad on 73rd and Park (Park? Wow), and in case she hadn't heard, some actors have to wait tables between shitty auditions. Megan, her humor now gone, informs her friend that she would kill just to be able to read for this horrific part and the friend drops her bluster, saying it's just that she hasn't booked anything in a while and Megan's lucky, is all. And I have to admit I wasn't expecting to hear so many familiar uncomfortable entertainment-industry truths on a show about advertising. Megan half-barks that she is lucky, but the friend wins the round on her way out the door: "I've got a shift." In response, it looks like Megan chews the inside of her cheek and I haven't mentioned her chompers in a while but I sure hope she's paying attention to what she's doing. The friend too-brightly asks what she should bring for Thanksgiving and I was going to suggest a new attitude, but Megan's reply of "Something sweet" kind of amounts to the same thing.