Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 580 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT "I Demand Satisfaction!"
By Couch Baron | Season 5 | Episode 5 | Aired on 2012.04.15
The dinner Pete and Roger proposed is happening and Don is pitching the idea that the Jaguar is so sexy as to be pornographic, which is made hilariously incongruous by the fact that the four men are all wearing neat little lobster bibs. The talk of sex is not completely in vain, however, as Edwin tells them that he appreciates their all-hands-on-deck approach, but opines that their "friendship" would best be advanced by them having some fun. Roger's like, "Fun! That's my department!" and Edwin goes on that he has every intention of giving them his business -- he just wants to make sure he enjoys the people he works with. Roger's down with that and wonders if Lane didn't offer, but Edwin muses that he expects Lane and he don't have the same taste in this area and it does seem like Lane gave off a less-than-fun impression, but I wonder what Edwin would say if he knew about Lane's whoring it up with Don, his Playboy Cub membership, and his Texas belt buckle. Anyway, Pete's idea is shot down, so he defers to Roger, who gleefully tells the table that he's got a friend who's having a party right around the corner...
...and then they are in, not to put too fine a point on it, a Manhattan brothel. Pete and Roger are both slurry and dazzled by all the wares in front of them, but Don just sits with a fairly bored and disapproving look on his face and I'm starting to see how part of the change in his behavior has come from the fact that he's less compartmentalized now. He's not distinguishing between work behavior and home behavior, he's not keeping Dick Whitman a secret -- it's not that he doesn't love Megan, because it's evident he does, but we know he loved Betty too, at least at one point. But I'm sensing he also wouldn't be able to look Megan in the eye and lie to her, which I think has more to do with his development as a person than anything else, even if she was the catalyst for it. Contrast that with Pete, who's heading in the other direction and all this math seems clearly to add up to the episode theme being that the suburbs are evil. Matt Weiner wouldn't be the first person to think so. Some blonde employee tells Pete exactly what his bruised masculinity needs to hear by opining that he's probably "stronger than he looks," and invites him to come have some rum in her room. Don, again showing how the parts of him are coming together, finds it difficult to watch this after just having been in Trudy's home and as such can't suppress a disparaging eye-roll, which Pete returns in kind before heading off...