Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B- | 472 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT …And The Clio Goes To…
By Couch Baron | Season 4 | Episode 6 | Aired on 2010.08.29
Stan is game at first, gladly getting down to his underwear, but when Peggy goes buck (tastefully blocked by the typewriter and the fact that she's sitting down) you can practically hear the blood leaving his brain, not that it had that much to do up there to begin with. She interrupts his Homer Simpson-esque staring by asking what he's waiting for, and he does take off his underwear, demurely sitting as he does, though, and basic cable or no, you're not exactly coming off as the stud you claim to be, guy. She asks what he's got on cough drops, and when he replies that he's thinking, she leans forward and takes a good look: "About what?" He protests too much by saying it's "involuntary" and "left over from the magazine," but when she starts talking about the product, he focuses in on her chest and crosses his legs, and I'll make the obvious point: If she should be ashamed of her body, what does it say about you that you're pointing skyward at the moment?
Back in the bar, Don is clearly, to use a scientific term, piss-ass drunk, while Joan, for her part, looks bored with Roger's incessant boozing, although he doesn't seem quite into "Lishen, lishen, lishen" territory as Don. Some bimbo with a tacky necklace then interrupts to ask if that's Don Draper over there and if he's available, and Joan's basically like, "Knock yourself out, honey." The bimbo goes to reel in her drunken catch, leaving Roger to complain about how no one gives awards for what he does, which is to "find guys like him."
I have to say, this episode really is not doing it for me with this storyline. Given what we learn later, I find it difficult to believe that Roger (a) would stick to this story when under the influence of so much booze, which usually makes people more inclined to tell the truth, and (b) would present something he knows to be, if not an outright lie, at least a half-truth, to the person he values and respects probably more than anyone else in the world.
I mean, I'm not offended or anything, but much like I felt about "The Rejected," I think the show is trying too hard here to make a thematic point at the expense of character consistency, when it usually marries the two so gracefully as to seem like it isn't even trying. This is a challenge for any show that's been around a while, though -- the more established the characters are with the viewers, the tougher it is to keep them behaving in a believable way and still tell new stories and investigate interesting themes such as ambition, awards, and the relationship between the two. Anyway, Joan informs Roger that he's "crossed the border from lubricated to morose," and bids him goodnight. He watches her go, and then looks down the bar at Don and the giggling bimbo...