Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 390 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT The Devil You Know
By Couch Baron | Season 5 | Episode 9 | Aired on 2012.05.13
In her apartment, Megan is reading a scene from a soap opera (Dark Shadows to be exact... there's your title tie-in!) with some redheaded woman and whether it's due to the terrible writing or melodramatic acting, Megan quickly breaks, laughing as she asks who the hell "this woman" is. Here scenemate, however, is shocked that Megan would cast aspersions on any of it. Megan, I don't know if they told you, but lack of humor about your craft is something you might as well start getting used to from idiots like this. And speaking of things she'd better inure herself against, when she tries to say that they used to laugh about audition material like this, the "friend" stands and replies that it's just so easy for Megan to criticize from her grand pad on 73rd and Park (Park? Wow), and in case she hadn't heard, some actors have to wait tables between shitty auditions. Megan, her humor now gone, informs her friend that she would kill just to be able to read for this horrific part and the friend drops her bluster, saying it's just that she hasn't booked anything in a while and Megan's lucky, is all. And I have to admit I wasn't expecting to hear so many familiar uncomfortable entertainment-industry truths on a show about advertising. Megan half-barks that she is lucky, but the friend wins the round on her way out the door: "I've got a shift." In response, it looks like Megan chews the inside of her cheek and I haven't mentioned her chompers in a while but I sure hope she's paying attention to what she's doing. The friend too-brightly asks what she should bring for Thanksgiving and I was going to suggest a new attitude, but Megan's reply of "Something sweet" kind of amounts to the same thing.
Ginzo comes busting into Roger's office, but Roger is apparently expecting him as he waves him into a chair and asks him if he can keep a secret. Ginzo: "Nope." Hee. Roger thinks long and hard about that response, but apparently decides it's not a deal-breaker as he hands Ginzo a drink and tells him he needs him to do some work for him on a prospective account and there will be dinner involved. Ginzo: "And murder." It's almost like he's seen the script. Roger impatiently brushes Ginzo's attempt to play coy about his Jewish heritage aside while not even bothering to rein in his insulting comments about the same; the point is he wants some ideas for selling Manischewitz to Gentiles. Ginzo, however, wonders whether keeping secrets from Don is such a brilliant idea and for someone who mouths off as much as he does, it's nice to see that he has some kind of self-preservation instinct. Roger's plan, however, is to take credit for the ideas at the dinner, after which he suggests that Don will obviously pick Ginzo for the account, but Ginzo doesn't understand the need for all these machinations. So Roger offers: "When a man hates another man very very much sometimes he wants to know that something is his, even if in the end, he has to give it up." Ginzo is more hip to the explanation than I would have expected, gleefully noting that Roger really hates Pete, but Roger gives one of his implied acid-changed-my-life speeches as he says he doesn't devote the energy to hating people anymore. "It's for Mr. Cooper." Hee. Ginzo asks what's in it for him and after getting the price to something that seems in the ballpark for what he paid Peggy for similar work, Roger sighs, "I've got to start carrying less cash." I'm going to go old-school on this one: shout-out?