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
As the emcee tells everyone to start getting to their seats, Pete's eyes go to serial-killer width as Ken and the client shove off, and when they're gone, Pete asks Joan in a panic if they're merging with Geyer. Joan pointedly tells him to talk to Pryce before heading to the SCDP table, and Pete follows and starts to tell Don about what happened. Don, however, nervously tells him not to talk to him now, and Pete lets it go in time to see the emcee start to be heckled by an unbelievably soused Duck Phillips. And here's one of my problems with this episode -- last time we saw him, Duck was sober once more, relevant -- he's at Grey, remember, and he could have taken Peggy and Pete there -- and kind of loving life, if the way he was rogering Peggy was any indication.
Now, he gets brought back for five seconds to be the biggest boozehound in a room full of them? Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying this doesn't happen all the time in real life, but since he's a minor character past the point of relevance appearing for thirty seconds here just to buttress the Don and Roger alcohol storyline, it feels forced and dramatically unsatisfying, and it could be that they're going for some comedy, but it doesn't really play as funny. I find this ill-advised.
Anyway, Duck gets escorted out, and paying my opinion no mind, Roger laughs to Don that he misses working with that guy, and Don grins in return: "I feel like I've already won." The aged emcee tells the crowd that that will be the limit of the public-speaking portion of their show, which is a nice line but probably wouldn't have held up if Roger didn't end up getting called away. He also suggests everyone pace themselves, and I may not understand humor very well but it seems like that should get even more of a laugh than the previous line, no?
Stan's throwing pencils into the ceiling, and it's just too bad Joan's not around to see this, because she'd get behind Peggy in this feud right quick, but instead, Peggy can only seethingly ask him why he's even here if he worked on the Johnson campaign. Surprisingly, Stan starts speaking Peggy's language, saying that no one at the agency that did the campaign kept track of who did what, and Peggy gets on board as she says that she had a lot to do with Glo-Coat, especially the original idea, and she doesn't know if the whole "cowboy thing" Don put on it was all that revolutionary. Stan seems content to let her babble for a bit, but she goes on that when the nomination came in, Don let everyone pat him on the back. "I was clapping, and he thought I was clapping for him!" Stan asks, who the hell claps for "themselves," and grammar issues aside, I'm totally with him, which I expect and certainly hope will never happen again.