Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | 319 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Surprise?
By Couch Baron | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2012.03.25
...which is why I find the ensuing nighttime cut to the new, forbidding Rye Town Francis Estate to be deeply, deeply hilarious. Don pulls up, with all the kids in the front with him and Sally wishes him a happy birthday again before Bobby asks how old he's going to be. Don confesses that he'll be forty and sublimates any rage or insecurity about that fact by testing Bobby's math, asking how old he'll be when Bobby's forty. Bobby: "You'll be dead." Okay, New Bobby, you're off to a good start. Honestly, though, can you imagine a seventy-year-old Don Draper in 1996? I wonder how he and Bill Clinton would get along. Noting his lack of movement, Sally asks if Don isn't going to come in, and Don replies no, "but give Morticia and Lurch my love." It's not the most apt comparison, but still: Snerk. Gene even manages a baby-voiced "G'night, Daddy," and then Don watches them go for a long moment before resuming his normal kid-free life.
Now, Don's apartment looked decidedly within the confines of the city, so who's this on a commuter train? Why it's Pete Campbell, who apparently has been prevailed upon to move his wife and we can assume newborn child out to the 'burbs, possibly Greenwich, if Trudy got her first choice. Some guy whom Pete obviously knows makes fun of him for his apparent dandruff, but Pete corrects him that it's spit-up and while that goes with the territory, I'm surprised he doesn't put a dishtowel or something on his shoulder when he's dressed in work clothes. Then again, it could be another signal of the times -- as I indicated, people are feeling a little less put together than they used to. Speaking of which, when talk turns to Trudy, Pete says she's "getting back to herself," but when asked for clarification, offers, "There was a time when she wouldn't leave the house in a robe." I mean, obviously, I know that people turn it out a lot less once they have a kid to worry about, but I still think there may be zeitgeist at work here too. Pete's most charming friend, who's a bit older, tells him as time goes by, he'll find himself on later and later trains home. "If you finally learn how to drive, you could push it to nine-thirty." However sleep-deprived Pete may be, though, he seems above taking advice from this dude, "Howard," who confesses that he and "Beth" got in a huge fight the other night and he drove off and spent the night in some random motel. After taking a moment to stew (and also get a deck of cards and a makeshift table from the conductor -- is that included in the price of a ticket?) though, Howard smiles and says that his problems are "nothing that a little peace wouldn't fix." Pete agrees, but the ensuing look on his face suggests he only did so to shut Howard up and end the scene, both of which I appreciate. Also, the conductor calls Greenwich as the next stop, but as this seems to be the morning train, I guess the Campbells ended up a little farther out. And I could rivet you with revelations like this all day, but we have other places to get to...