Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | 514 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Half the Battle
By Couch Baron | Season 4 | Episode 8 | Aired on 2010.09.12
Peggy comes in to Joan with a vending-machine complaint, and it's not like Joan's thrilled to hear it, but she gets even less so when she notices a drawing taped to the outside of her window depicting her rather busty self giving Pryce head with the caption "Tally-Ho!" I'll admit the tagline made me laugh, but it's all to do with Pryce, especially when you consider his little dalliance earlier in the season. With Peggy in tow, Joan marches out to the break area and asks Joey, Stan, and that random guy who it was that made "that pornographic drawing," and when she gets only puerile taunts in return, she takes a few moments before blowing her stack, telling the boys she can't wait for them to get shipped off to Vietnam. "You will be pining for the day when someone was trying to make your life easier. When you're over there, and you're in the jungle and they're shooting at you, remember you're not dying for me, because I never liked you." Forget everything I said about Joan no longer commanding respect, and Christina Hendricks sold the hell out of that.
As Joan leaves the scene, Peggy says her name, but Joan has got her groove back, and calmly tells her not to worry -- she's not going home. Joey wonders what's wrong with Joan, like he expected her to take the drawing with good humor, and Peggy, upset, reminds him that she told him not to do it. She grabs the thing off the wall, and this is where she screws up, because even though her heart's in the right place she didn't take the time to realize that Joan was cool, calm, and collected, and thus perfectly happy with how she handled the situation. Nevertheless...
...Peggy marches into Don's office and shows him the offending material, getting this reply: "Narrative, forced perspective...you sure Joey did this?" HA! Peggy doesn't see the humor, of course, once again saying that she told Joey not to, and I didn't catch this on first viewing but I think part of her problem with the situation is that Joey didn't heed her even though she's his superior, which offends her both as a woman and as, well, an ambitious person. You can decide for yourself which part is the more wounded. And on that front, Peggy gets more than she bargained for as Don tells her simply to go fire him. Taken aback, she admits she thought he would merely go discipline Joey, but Don tells her she can do what she likes, but she should trust him that she doesn't want to get him involved, as people will think she's a tattletale. Miss Blankenship then buzzes that Faye is there, so Don stands and dismisses Peggy with the advice to go out there and earn some respect if that's what she wants. Faye then enters, so Peggy leaves...