Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 488 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT I Went To A Garden Party…
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 3 | Aired on 2009.08.30
...and we cut to Roger singing "My Old Kentucky Home" in blackface. And although it's not like blackface was gone in this time, I think this might be meant to underscore the idea that Roger does not have the best judgment. I know this comes as a shock. However, most people seem to be enjoying the show, although Pete looks mildly disapproving of the racist humor, while Don can't stomach it from both the narrower angle of seeing Roger make an ass out of himself yet again, and from the broader one that's about to be explored with an old geezer in an empty bar. He asks Betty if they can go, but she, having been raised to believe she was a princess and taught that "conversation is an art," is far more in her element than he, and wants to stay. He starts to head away, but she calls to him not to disappear, as she wants to dance. Roger is still singing, though, so Don vacates the area...
...and heads inside the clubhouse, apparently, in which he finds a bar with a solitary older man behind it. Mistaking him for a bartender (his white jacket adding to the confusion), Don asks for an Old Fashioned, but the guy isn't working -- he just came to raid the place and get away from people, but he can't find any bourbon. Well, with the ten thousand mint juleps already drunk, a third of them by Roger, it's no surprise. Taking matters into his own hands, Don hops over the bar, finds some rye, and makes two Old Fashioneds himself as the old coot introduces himself as "Connie" and asks who Don's escaping from. Don sighs that he's "at work disguised as a party," and Connie tells him he's in the same boat with a wedding. Connie goes on to reminisce about his childhood, and since his speech isn't all that rife with significant moments I'm going to just tell you that the guy started from modest upbringings, and then skip ahead to the part where he asks Don if he's seen "A Midsummer Dream, with Mickey Rooney." Don corrects him on the title, to which Connie responds, "God, you're prickly!" Your point, Old-eron? Oh, it's that he feels out of place at these things even though he's rich, and Don in turn relays a story of how he used to park cars for rich people at a roadhouse, and he wasn't allowed to use the bathroom they used, so when he needed to piss, he'd do it in one of their trunks. Better than in the gas tank, I suppose. Connie chuckles, and then asks Don where he comes from; Don answers Pennsylvania by way of Illinois, as they lost their farm and ended in coal country. And then just like that, the meeting is over, and Connie heads back to his affair while Don just leans back against the bar and sighs.