Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | 6 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT We're Not Gonna Take It
By Couch Baron | Season 6 | Episode 3 | Aired on 04.14.2013
Pete enters the kitchen to find Trudy sitting at the table, he tries to "Good morning" her and to make a quick exit, but her voice rings into his back: "Couldn't you just pretend?" She contemptuously goes on that she let him have the apartment. "Somehow I thought that there was some dignity in granting permission." Her volume climbs as she adds that all she wanted was for him to be discreet, and yet here Wife Number One lives on their block! Pete tries for a casual denial, but it's not going to fly: "There's no way for me to escape, to not be an object of pity while you get to do whatever you feel like." She tells him she won't stand for this anymore, and he snidely asks if she wants a divorce, but he doesn't reckon on this coming speech: "This is how it's going to work. You will be here only when I tell you to be here. I'm drawing a fifty-mile radius around this house, and if you so much as open your fly to urinate, I will destroy you." I didn't think I'd see Trudy join Betty, Mona, and now Joan on this list of divorcees on this show, but I might have known if she ever did, it would come this enjoyably. Pete snits that she's going to realize that, referring to his infidelities, she doesn't know anything for sure, but Trudy isn't about to cede him the last word: "I'll live with that." Having no answer, he leaves, and after she contemplates Wife Number One's blood still on one of her dishtowels, she sits back down to contemplate a post-Campbell existence. This scene may have hit the "refusal to collaborate any further" theme without all that much subtlety, but in this instance I sure don't care.
Peggy enters her office to find Chaough, who hands her a folder saying it contains what they have so far, "but I want you to find out everything you can on Heinz Ketchup." Uh oh. He's got his trademark friendly smile on, giving Peggy a false sense of security in telling him she can't do that - she learned the information from a friend, and she doesn't want to betray that trust. Since, from the account she heard, SCDP is SCDP, Ketchup is Ketchup, and never the twain shall have another meeting, Peggy could rationalize what Chaough is asking for as not the worst breach of ethics or friendship, but she's right to try to draw the line now, as this can only lead her places she's not willing to go. Of course, it's possible that even a whisper of Ketchup being unhappy in his current situation could alienate Beans, but regardless, the flipside of Peggy standing up for herself is that Chaough's got a chance to test her loyalty here, because otherwise I'd think normal protocol would be for him to turn her tip over to his Accounts team and leave her out of it. And test her he does, as he speculates that she needs a friend more than a job. "I didn't know that. I'm in advertising." With a few additional words that are meant to be more reassuring, he hands her the folder and heads out. She looks bummed, but at least he spared her any comments about the collaborative process.