Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Here's a Question For You
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 08.09.2007
Roger and Don head in to see Bertram, who bids them into seats. He uses a long metaphor to get to the point, which is that Pete's mother's family owned just about everything in Manhattan north of 125th Street. And they're worried about Pete living on 83rd? Bertram goes on that Pete's grandfather panicked and dropped it all in the crash of '29, but he still doesn't want Pete's mother telling her rich friends about how bad Sterling Cooper treated Pete. On top of that, Pete is their "entrée" into many exclusive institutions -- clubs, Dartmouth, even Gracie Mansion. This is a neat answer to the why Sterling and Cooper told Pete that he's good with people when that obviously isn't true. Don still thinks they could get someone else with those connections who isn't Pete, but Bertram replies, "You're going to need a stronger stomach if you're going to be back in the kitchen seeing how the sausage is made." That's the grossest way I've ever heard anyone get fast-tracked. Don eventually bows, and as he and Roger leave, Bertram whistles "This Old Man" to himself. God, I love that old coot.
Soon after, Pete's still lying miserably on his couch when Roger, followed by Don, bursts in and chews Pete out for what he did. With the obvious intention of getting Pete to toe Don's line, he spins a yarn that he and Bertram wanted Pete out, but Don fought for him. Don's plenty smart enough to play along, while Pete's plenty dumb enough actually to believe this. Pete looks to Don and says he doesn't know what to say, but Roger tells him to shut up, and goes on that Don is Pete's commanding officer. "You live and die in his shadow. Understood?" Pete nods his head like a kid in the principal's office who's just been told his parents won't be called, and Roger starts to leave, but Pete tells Don he won't let him down. Roger stops: "Jesus, Campbell! Don't ever say that!" Hee. The men leave, and the boy flops down in relief.
Later, Roger is sitting in Don's office telling him how his generation drinks for the wrong reasons -- Roger's generation drinks because it's good and it's what men do, but Don's drinks to drive away gloomy thoughts and worries. "You're all busy licking some imaginary wound." And once again, the show subtly drives home the point that men and women, gender-identity-wise, were losing their way in this period. Don counters that maybe he's not as comfortable being powerless as Roger is, and Roger, after admonishing Don not to compete with Pete, muses that perhaps every generation thinks the next one is the end of it all. "I bet there were people in the Bible walking around complaining about kids today." Herod the Great comes to mind. Don notes that kids today have no one to look up to. "Because they're looking up to us."