Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 488 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT I Went To A Garden Party…
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 3 | Aired on 2009.08.30
In the main area, Joan's heading out, presumably to lunch, with a couple of girls when she sees Jane approaching. After inwardly smiling about the fact that she just got a manicure, she catches Jane's eye, who gives her a smile as wide as it is fake before saying, referring to Joan's plans to leave SC, that she didn't expect to see her. Joan, twice as fakely, says she'll be there for just a little while longer, and then one of her minions tosses out that it's good to see Jane..."I mean, Mrs. Sterling." That one hangs in the air for a good long moment before Joan dismisses her underlings, and Jane tells her she's just stopping by after having her rings resized. "I keep losing weight." Other than the affirmation of her newfound status, that's surely meant as a dig at Joan's full figure, but bragging about how she doesn't eat is going to come back to haunt her before the episode's end. Putting her bitch drive up into third, she asks where Joan is living, and Joan tells her they're in the same place, but are looking at getting a house with a yard up in Riverdale. Jane hits the open road by saying she gets a nosebleed anywhere above 86th Street before giving Joan some instructions having to do with her chauffeur, and when she's gone, Joan takes a long moment to swallow what she just had to endure from her replacement. Not that I necessarily think that Joan really wanted to be married to Roger, in the end, but I think they both told themselves and each other that they knew that wasn't a possibility, so it has to hurt Joan, at least a little, to have seen him dump his wife for another, even younger, office girl, not to mention that it takes away from Joan's apparent victory at being the one to find true love. Add in the fact that this episode is all about social status, and you see how truly significant this little exchange is. Of course, if Joan were really married to a wonderful guy, she'd forget about all this by the time she reaches the elevator, but...well, I don't want to get too ahead of myself. (But in case you want a preview: Greg, on top of everything else, is a loser.)
Peggy tells her new secretary, a buttoned-up matron-aged woman named "Olive," that there's no further need to include Harry in Casting notices. Heh. After acknowledging that, Olive shows her willingness to serve by holding out two cups and offering Peggy her choice of tea or coffee, saying she'll drink whichever one Peggy doesn't want. Peggy chooses coffee, pointing out that it's what she normally drinks, but Olive clarifies that she's offering the choice because Lola said a second cup makes Peggy edgy. Peggy: "I want you to forget everything Lola told you." She's already on fire this episode, which makes her later pot-fueled lines no surprise. But I was thinking, given that Lola would have interfered with the image of Peggy's ascendancy this episode is pushing on us hard, that maybe it was a little convenient that the anti-Peggy Lola disappeared, but then I realized that she's probably working for the also-thankfully-absent Hooker, who as you'll remember was offered his choice of girls to do his typing. Not that I miss her, but I love that the show has an actual reason for giving me what I wanted.