Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 450 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT All the Real Girls
By Couch Baron | Season 4 | Episode 9 | Aired on 2010.09.19
Peggy returns to Reception, pulls Abe out to the elevator area so as not to be overheard, and although she doesn't explain to us exactly what he wrote, you can infer that it portrayed Fillmore in a bad light and also mentioned their ad agency, and as Peggy points out, everyone knows that SCDP is the agency of record for Fillmore, and especially since he's throwing around comparisons to war criminals, she could lose her job if he publishes the story. It's not clear to me if he made specific allusions to her in the story, or if she thinks she'll get canned because people know of her connection to Abe, or both, but he offers that maybe she's better than the industry in which she works, albeit in the abrasive way he claimed he was trying to avoid. In response, she rips up the story and says she's not a political person, but he tells her she's political whether she likes it or not, and he certainly has a point there, given her own description of the hardships she's faced to get where she is today. However, he loses ground when he goes on that she should be flattered, not insulted, and that she inspired him. "You look so earnest." And cute! Don't forget cute! Oy. Peggy is not impressed with his attempts to explain, and tells him she needs his word that he'll destroy the story, and, defeated, he agrees. "I won't bother you again." I'm thinking that this is why some couples agree not to talk about politics. Abe looks severely bummed as Peggy stomps away, and whatever else you can say about him, it's clear he really likes her...
...and I think she likes him too, still, so I'm not surprised that when she sees Miss Blankenship apparently sleeping in her chair, she hisses at her to wake up. However, when she marches over to her, she gets more than she bargained for when she taps her arm and she falls forward like a rag doll. Peggy gasps in horror, and after unsuccessfully trying to get Caroline off the phone, she rushes into Don's office, but only finds Sally there. Hilariously, she sternly tells Sally not to come out of Don's office, to which Sally irritatedly replies, "I know!" Heh.
The next thing we know, Megan is interrupting the meeting again, and when she leads Don over to his office, we see Joan, Peggy, and Caroline all standing in tears over Miss Blankenship's corpse. Don takes a moment to express some confused sympathy, and then after Peggy asks if they should call an ambulance, Joan corrects her that it should be the coroner, and then Don wonders what they're going to do about the people in the conference room. Joan tells him she'll take care of the Blankenship situation, but when Don tells her Sally's in his office, it's the last Jenga move, especially given that that eliminates Don's office as a makeshift morgue, and she breathes, "Why?" Megan pipes up that Sally is "visiting," and this reflexive covering for Don will serve her well if she's going to replace Miss Blankenship for any length of time. Joan, recovering herself, tells Megan to get a man and a blanket -- "there's an afghan on Mr. Crane's couch" -- and when she leaves to carry out those orders, Don bemusedly offers that Miss Blankenship seemed fine just a bit earlier. Having no answer to that, Joan can only shake her head, so Don heads back into the meeting...