Episode Report Card Joe R: A | 699 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT The Winner of the Ham Battle is You
By Joe R | Season 4 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2010.07.25
Cut to Don, Roger, and Pete exiting the elevator at the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce offices. It's not the old digs, but everything looks crisp and professional and decidedly un-shabby. The accompanying happy-jazzy music doesn't hurt either. Along the way, we see Joan Holloway has gotten her own office, so high-fives all around for that. Roger concludes what must have been quite the bitch session about the Jantzen guys, chaffing that they come off as prudes, but one of them is probably returning from New York with VD. Don asks his accountant to give him a minute -- Bert Cooper has a bee in his bonnet about something. Don missed a meeting with someone or other, and Cooper was left to show off their meager floorspace. Pete asks if Cooper mentioned the second floor. Cooper: "I refuse to take any part in that charade." Heh. I guess in this business of lies and illusion, what's a made-up second floor to your operation? Cooper complains that they could have gotten more space for their dollar in an office downtown. Don, meanwhile, complains about their lack of a conference table. Ah, partners! Cooper exits, and Pete then turns his happy face to Don, asking why he's so glum since the Jantzen guys clearly loved him. Don hates that they're prudes, but he really hates that Y&R was out in the hallway waiting for the next meeting. He thinks next to them, SCDP looks like small potatoes. Pete thinks that works in their favor: "We're the scrappy upstart!" Don: "You don't say that to the clients, do you?" Pete also thinks they have one other distinct advantage over Y&R: they have Don. See how much more positive and productive Pete can be when you let him be part of the team?
In Peggy's office -- where our girl is sporting a very Patty Duke-inspired hairstyle -- she and New Guy Joey are aimlessly repeating that old soap opera parody where the woman breathily calls for "John!" and the guy replies "Marsha!" And on and on. Pete interrupts their good times with a canned ham. Boy, doesn't he always? He's worried that Sugarberry -- the ham-makers -- were sending a message by sending them only one ham in a cardboard box with no note. The gist is that while the campaign was listless (Don hated it), Sugarberry wasn't exactly free-spending in the first place. "Testing in four supermarkets in Queens?" Peggy scoffs. "How much were they spending? Nothing." Pete grouses that if the test were successful, they could've gone national and been a big account. "I thought we were getting in a streak." Again, the change in Pete at the beginning of this season is significant. He couldn't be more of a team player. Joey -- who's worried the loss of Sugarberry will put him down to two days a week -- suggests putting the ham on Don's desk, since he'll be having Thanksgiving dinner alone. "That's not nice," Peggy admonishes. Joey volleys back a "Marsha!" but Peggy's serious.