Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A+ | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Are You Gonna Drop The Bomb Or Not?
By Couch Baron | Season 2 | Episode 13 | Aired on 10.26.2008
At SC, Ken hands Harry a folder: "With love, from Ken Cosgrove and Pete Campbell." Not a pair I would have put together, but I hope those crazy kids make it work! No, it's some paperwork from Accounts, as Bertram asked for the ad-revenue projections early. Harry notes with some annoyance that Clearasil is missing, inducing an unnoticed guilty look from Peggy, before telling Ken he doesn't know what's up with the unusual request. Paul wonders if it could have something to do with Don's continued absence, but Harry thinks Don's just out landing a big aerospace account. Ken looks inquisitively at Peggy, who says she hasn't heard anything, and Paul speculates that Don might be opening his own shop before Harry suggests he might be finding a location for "Sterling Cooper West." Harry's looking in entirely the wrong direction, which is all too common among the junior execs on this show. He notes that whatever is going on, they're being evaluated, and expresses his fear that Kennedy's speech that night might go overtime, which would cut into his department's ad revenue. "I'll take it in the shorts." It's kind of jarring when Sal isn't around to pop an eyebrow at lines like this, so we have to settle for Paul asking, "Why am I sick to my stomach?" Also, Harry, I know your wear pretty thick glasses, but being concerned about your department's performance at a time like this seems myopic even for you.
Peggy comes in to see Pete, who says he's waiting on a call from North American Aviation. "It's ten there. They should just be getting in to work." Peggy nervously asks if Pete mentioned anything about Clearasil to anyone, and upon hearing a negative, tells him about all the emergency accounting. Pete, without a trace of pretension or anger, says he just doesn't know what to say to Duck, so Peggy advises him to tell the truth and not worry about the outcome. "People respect that." Of course, Duck might respectfully fire him, but that advice is still sound, especially since it's not like he has a choice anyway. Pete thanks her, and Peggy leaves with a smile: "I don't want you blaming Creative." Pete's face: "Wait, you think that might work?"
Betty's riding, which seems like a really passive-aggressive way to abort a child, but she soon has her attention drawn to the fact that Don is waiting for her, hat literally in hand, when she dismounts. She takes a moment before approaching him and asking where he's been, and he in turn takes a deep breath before saying he needed some time to think things over. She counters, "Must be nice. Needing time and just taking it, all on your own terms." She's obviously ready to go toe to toe with him, but he's finally there to be real, as he says he's sorry for what happened. She gets what's going on: "What happened?" He tells her that he wasn't respectful to her, with that statement simultaneously apologizing for everything -- the infidelity, the lying, the taking her for granted, the treating her like a child. She claims victory in their long battle of wills: "Well, now I know I'm not crazy. That helps." Don urgently tells her he can't walk away from what they have together, and he wants to be together with her again. So I guess last week's baptism wasn't so much literally losing the Don Draper identity as getting rid of the parts of that identity that served to isolate him -- going back to when he was excited about having a family, and when he didn't believe he was alone. She's noncommittal, saying things haven't been that different without him, which looks cutting on the page but was actually delivered more with a tone of scientific observation than anything else. He still looks wounded, but changes the subject to the kids, saying he needs to see them. For obvious reasons, however, their offspring are not a subject about which she's feeling chatty at the moment, so she says she can't deal with the situation right now, but will call and make arrangements. She strides off, and Don looks disappointed that that didn't go a little better. On the plus side, his camel overcoat looks dashing.