Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A | 3 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT A Lucky Strike
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2007.07.19
Inside, Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) is on the phone, assuring his fiancée that he'll get home safely; he then smiles at the boys as he tells her to take her mother to lunch and tell her it was his idea. Okay, but will you foot the bill if they order some celebratory champagne? They are WASPs, you know. Pete goes on that he doesn't know what the boys have planned, but "judging from the creative brainpower around here, we'll probably end up seeing My Fair Lady." It's a lot more appropriate if you think of it as Pig-Malion. Ken, however, holds up a brochure from The Slipper Room, which is actually only a few blocks from where I live and a place I used to frequent. Hey, the burlesque may have been straight, but the bartenders most assuredly were not. Pete smiles in approval and says he'll stop by the fiancée's place on his way home. "Your mother can check under my fingernails." Just as long as she doesn't light a match in your vicinity. He assures her he loves her. "I'm giving up my life to be with you, aren't I?" Yeah, remember what I said about those offhand comments? Pete hangs up and, seemingly sincerely, tells the boys that she's great, and that she stole his heart. Paul: "And her old man's loaded." Oh, Paul. Here we were, having a lovely time discussing all the tits and ass we're going to see tonight, and you had to go get gauche on us.
The redheaded bombshell we know as Joan (Christina Hendricks) is showing Peggy around; she points out the area that the account executives and creative executives share. "Please don't ask me the difference." I'm going to have to steal that line. Joan, who's a lot less imperious here than she may or may not come to be, says that if Peggy follows her advice, she's be able to avoid a lot of mistakes she's made. And when Paul serendipitously passes and says hello to her, Joan adds, "Like that one." Heh. After some talk about how long it took Peggy to get there from where she lives, Joan says that if she makes the right moves, she'll be in the city with the rest of them in a couple of years, but if she really makes the right moves, she'll be in the country and not working at all. The part about "And if you fuck up, that's what Bensonhurst is for" is omitted, but advertising is all about accentuating the positive. Joan leads Peggy to an empty desk, saying that they'll be right across the aisle from each other, and will both be taking care of Don for a while. Do I even need to tell you to make your own joke here? Joan then ticks off the important points -- don't overdo it with the perfume, keep a fifth of something in your desk (Don's a rye drinker), and invest in some aspirin, Band-Aids, and a needle and thread. "He may act like he wants a secretary, but most of the time they're looking for something between a mother and a waitress." As for the rest of the time, Joan tells Peggy as she steps forward and regards her appraisingly, she should go home, cut some eyeholes in a paper bag, strip, and look at herself in the mirror. "Really evaluate where your strengths and weaknesses are." So Joan, a woman, is encouraging Peggy to take seemingly emotionally painful steps that will result in her getting sexually harassed more often. A little fucked up, don't you think? Joan encourages Peggy to be honest in her self-evaluation, and Peggy replies that she always tries to be honest. Joan smiles in apparent approval...