Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 551 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Strange Bedfellows
By Couch Baron | Season 6 | Episode 6 | Aired on 2013.05.05
For the second time this season, we get a transition designed to please the teenage boys in the audience, as we cross-fade to Don while hearing the background noise of a plane taking off. He and Roger are at the airport being served cocktails by Daisy, and Roger asks if she can get "those lugs from Dancer" bumped off the flight. Daisy basically is like, please don't ask me to do anything that would get me fired, and after she's gone, Roger apprehensively notes that they've got like eight people there. One of them approaches and asks Roger, referring to Don, if he's taking his kid to look at colleges (hee), but Roger shoots back that they're actually car-shopping. The guy's momentarily thrown but recovers by bringing up Vick Chemical, which is news to Roger and Don. The Dancer guy then fake-coughs and then asks if any of his team have a lozenge. "I know they don't!" Don and Roger realize the pressure on them just got even higher...
...while, speaking of high pressure, Pete, with Bertram present, is yelling into the phone for someone to get Tom on the phone or he's coming over there. Joan then rushes in having gotten word from Roger, and Pete yells some more and then storms out as Bertram offers to talk to Roger. Joan worries that they don't need this kind of news right now, but Bertram evenly assures her that Roger will handle it, and it's kind of touching that Bertram has so much faith in Roger after all this time. Still, it wouldn't shock me if he soon reaches for his record second drink of the episode.
Sure enough, Roger returns to Don with another round of drinks and tells him, with no hint of deception, that the Dancer guys are screwing with them. "Daisy's gonna lose their luggage." Heh. When Don isn't looking, though, Roger's face falls...
...while Pete's face is positively clenched in a frown when Tom enters his own office and closes the door. After a bit more heat, Pete sits and tries a conciliatory tack, saying that while they're both vulnerable, they're also both adults, so he wonders what he can do "to bring you back to reality in this obviously impulsive decision?" Well, what started as "conciliatory" veered off rather quickly into "smarmy" and "smug," not that Tom needs much justification for his stinging reply that Trudy could have had anyone. "I knew there was a reason you never wanted children. You have no business being a father." Pete invokes Ken's metaphor in pointing out that Tom just "pressed the button," but Tom, getting to his feet, tells Pete it makes him sick to think of him with his daughter and granddaughter. Pete disbelievingly suggests Tom have a look in the mirror, but Tom's not intimidated: "You can either walk out like a man, or I can have you thrown out like the lowlife you are." Tom would have gotten along with Lane Pryce, I have the feeling. Pete turns to go, but honestly wonders: If he's such a scumbag, why would Tom would push him like this? Tom confidently replies that Pete will do the right thing, and either he's playing a deep game and figures exactly what Trudy will do if Pete does tell her, or he's gone temporarily insane. Both possibilities seem equally likely.