Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | 349 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Hitting The Fan
By Couch Baron | Season 4 | Episode 11 | Aired on 2010.10.03
The janitor is at work and Don's got a drink in his hand, and if that's only his third I'll go back to the last scene and eat Roger's bowler hat. Faye wanders in and says she thought the place would still be packed, but Don sighs that it's eight o'clock. "There's only so much we can pretend like we're doing." Heh. Faye closes the door and asks if he's okay, and when he offers her a drink, she tells him she'd rather eat. He defensively says he's "one over" for the day, so apparently that's only his fourth drink, which I still find hard to believe but maybe wouldn't be willing to stake eating felt to find out. After they kiss, Faye asks how it went, and Don is forced to admit it was miserable. "I'm used to having my ideas rejected, not me." At least among the sighted population.
He asks how she deals wit It, and she tells him that she presents facts, and if clients are unhappy with the agency, that's not her problem. Picking up on her oblique implication, Don asks her who's unhappy, but after a lighthearted attempt to put him off, he persists, and some attitude creeps into her voice as she asks if he's kidding. He says no, as he's drowning here, and tries to tell her that no one has to know, but she sharply tells him the standard of ethics in their business is low enough without her contributing to its decline. If he let it go now, there still might be no damage done, but his own tone gets heated as he keeps at her until she tells him in no uncertain terms to forget it. Down to his last ace, he says that he would do it for her, but she's got a trump left: "I would never ask. I would never use you like that. Because I know the difference between what we have and this stupid office." I'm glad Don lets Faye leave instead of attempting to argue the point, because hearing him claim that he has any perspective when it comes to work might be enough to make my brain explode.
The next day, in Peggy's office, Stan watches Peggy as she silently practices her presentation, and after someone buzzes to let her know that the Playtex people have left their hotel, she confesses how nervous she is, prompting Stan to tell her she needs to relax. Peggy: "No. I can't do this drunk." Hee. But no, as he closes the door, he tells her that he knows a "technique" for relaxation that he learned from a yogi, and it says something about the level of Peggy's anxiety that she doesn't see this for the line it so obviously is. And in short order, Stan plants one on her, but she tells him to get off, and when he says he saw her with "the delivery boy," she tells him he's her boyfriend. In the heat of the moment, it's easy to forget about that, but even though she might be taking liberties with the word, she called Abe her boyfriend! Aw. Stan, however, doesn't believe her, and grossly tells "baby" that "it's the end of the world," but she reopens the door before asking him why he keeps making her reject him. He says he was trying to do her a favor, threatening to make my brain explode for suicide rather than overuse reasons, and she does admit she's no longer nervous. Anger and extreme loathing will do that, or at least that's my personal experience.