Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | 386 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT You Got Served!
By Couch Baron | Season 5 | Episode 10 | Aired on 2012.05.20
...and then Don is shifting that Jaguar's gears like there's no tomorrow. Whether in reality or -- given what I said earlier about the car's equivalent -- metaphorically it looks like the thing is doing something for Don after all.
Okay, this is a heavyweight contender for the dumbest scene this show has ever put forth, so let's get through it as quickly as possible: Lakshmi, after mildly giving Harry shit for smoking, informs him that she only participated in the carnal atrocity they just shared so Harry wouldn't "shake Paul's devotion." You see, Lakshmi doesn't appreciate Harry giving Paul false hope for "his awful teleplay," nor his effort to make Paul into "a gross materialist" when he's living in the spiritual world. Also, he's their best recruiter -- "he really can close." Well, ha ha and all, but do you care about his spiritual health or his value to the movement? Can't be both; you're barely-developed enough as a character to handle one. No fault of the actress, but this character is written all over the place. Lakshmi goes on that she's "trading the only thing [she] has," to which Harry points out that she already gave it away, earning him a hard slap. I don't begrudge her that, but it doesn't mean he's wrong and seriously, the whole thing plays like a little fantasy of Harry's rather than something any rational person would actually do...
...but speaking of people who are not appearing particularly sane right now, Megan is sitting at the dinner table and the psychotic look on her face is not going to be helped by Don drunkenly tossing his coat onto a lamp in the sunken living room. (And I just realized he left Joan without a coat on this winter night! Hopefully the other guy will step up on that front.) Don fixes the error, but as soon as he's in her line of sight, Megan seethes that he's drunk and she knows he left the office at lunch, so where the hell was he? Don: "You want to get the rolling pin?" Like so many of the most hilarious lines, this one is particularly ill-advised as Megan wings the plate of food in front of her across the room with such force that I'm wondering if she ever represented Quebec in Ultimate Frisbee. Don tells her where he was, but she yells that he could have called if he didn't want her to think the worst and she "put a plate in the oven and sat here like an idiot, waiting for someone who doesn't give a shit about anybody!" Don thinks this means Megan's going to strip down to bra and panties and start cleaning, but Megan informs him in no uncertain terms that he's going to sit down with her and eat and Don kind of can't believe this is happening but sits down as Megan stomps to the kitchen and come back to serve him a plate full of pasta and anger. Don starts to point to the dinner currently attracting bugs in the corner, but Megan snaps that she'll clean it up later. I guess fighting not only diminishes the two of them, but also their supply of flatware. Seriously, though, I know characters have nuances and contradictions, but is a different writer responsible for Megan every week? I find her extremely interesting, but I'd appreciate maybe twenty percent less whiplash in following her character. Megan, addressing an unspoken implication of Don having spent almost the entirety of a weekday in a bar, points out that he used to love his work. He tries to throw that back at her by opining it's different there now, but she won't be deterred saying he loved it before he ever met her. He doesn't reply, but the look on his face suggests that she has a point that still probably could have been made without the loss of good spaghetti. (Which might not be Megan's favorite meal anymore after tonight!)