Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 5 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Strange Bedfellows
By Couch Baron | Season 6 | Episode 6 | Aired on 05.05.2013
Chaough sounds lukewarm about it, deeming it "interesting" (although I think he's being sincere in his limited praise) before asking if "we" should go home, but Don is like, "we" -- that is the really interesting bit. He pretty much wastes no time in proposing a merger between SCDP and CGC, and Chaough is not so blown away that he doesn't have a bunch of logistical questions, but Don offers this scenario: He'll get Chevy to think it was their idea to combine the two agencies, while Chaough will figure out what their combined presentation will be. Chaough points out that they both have partners, but Don literally is like, "Do you see any partners?" It's a fair question, given that Don never does, so it'd be good for Chaough to tell him if they were there. Don orders a refill -- not his first of the scene -- but Chaough belays that, saying they're done. "We've got a long night." It's not quite when Draper's Eight formed SCDP, but it's an oddly enjoyable turn.
Just so we know this isn't completely a two-man rogue operation, the next day at GM, with "Baby Jane (Mo Mo Jane)" playing, Chaough and Cutler shake hands with Roger and Don, and Cutler is like, "I want to make it clear -- unless this works, I'm against it." Hee, but I think they all feel that way. They go in...
...but then the jaunty music comes to an abrupt halt as Trudy comes home to find Pete. She mildly points out he's not supposed to be there until the weekend, but he asks her to sit down. When she complies, he asks if she knows that her father pulled his business, but while she didn't, she also doesn't care: "He's done everything for you." But Pete just can't help himself from telling Trudy that he "caught him" in a whorehouse, and when he spills the details, she wonders if he'll say anything to hurt her. Pete replies that Tom wanted this way and left him no other choice, but Trudy's not about to let him get away with that: "You had lots of choices!" Starting with appreciating this woman, I feel obliged to point out on her behalf. She also tells him to get his things, as they're done, so I guess he can't complain about being in limbo anymore. Trudy looks upset, but if she's on the market for more than a year, baby and all, I'm missing a bet.
Peggy gets a buzz that Chaough is back and wants to see her, and she gets all filled with girlish glee at the prospect, which COME ON. So it's fairly hilarious when, after touching up her makeup, she enters Chaough's office and injects a hint of sexiness in asking how it went -- to have Don tell her from the couch that "we" got it. Peggy is like, who in the what now, so Chaough crows that GM wanted SCDP/CGC ideas and a big agency, so they gave them both. Don adds that they've officially merged, one hundred percent, and when Peggy still casts around for understanding and continues to look at Don like she's not sure if he's an illusion, Don steps forward and says he did this wrong once before, so they're going to tell her the situation, and she can decide what she wants to do. Chaough chimes in that she's now the copy chief at one of the twenty-five biggest agencies in the country and she's not even thirty. "I'm jealous." Peggy swallows and offers that she just bought an apartment, and Don congratulates her; her brain then seems to catch up to the scene as she asks if they're moving. Chaough tells her they are, and they'd like her to write the press release; Don adds that they don't have a name yet, but she should "make it sound like the agency you want to work for." Peggy still looks kind of uncertain and bummed, and I guess that makes sense because for all the ill treatment she got from him, he never cockblocked her before. (Well, there was that one time, but she kind of did it to herself.) Not to mention the fact that it's pretty clear that as a boss, she considers Chaough the anti-Don, so there's a real cognitive dissonance to seeing them as one. She leaves...