Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 4 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Mystery Date
By Couch Baron | Season 5 | Episode 4 | Aired on 04.08.2012
Michael Ginsberg and his ugly short-sleeved shirt are now part of the team, and they're typing away as Peggy wonders what's so great about transparency in pantyhose. Cut to Stan wearing a pair in a non-traditional way, with one leg pulled over his face, which doesn't stop him from smoking and making off-color remarks. Also, if I remember my shitty cop shows, a lot of rapists use pantyhose in the same manner as Stan is currently to hide their identity from their victims while still being able to see, so given the photos Joyce is about to show them it is just wildly unfortunate. Oh, Stan. And here's Joyce, coming in and greeting "Pegasus" as the hapless Meredith trails along in her wake, complaining she has to wait to be announced. Joyce essentially ignores her, which I guess means she isn't her type, and greets "Stanley" and "Ginzo" before sharing some Time photos with them - crime-scene shots from Chicago of the student-nurse murders. Stan and Peggy jump up to take a look, but Ginzo stays at his typewriter...
...while Don is still trying to tell Megan she's upset over nothing, and while she's still not thrilled, she does offer that she'll get over it...
...and now Peggy has the magnifying eyepiece and is rather-too-gleefully noting that the victims look like rag dolls. Meredith, at least with some horror in her voice, asks if they were raped, and Joyce says she doesn't know, but does offer, in a storytelling voice, that a couple of them were naked, and the ordeal went on for hours. I suppose this is as good a time as any to discuss what I think is the episode theme; although on the surface, it seems like it's all about violence toward women, I think the deeper idea is that no matter how well you may know someone, indeed, no matter how well someone may think he knows himself, when pushed hard enough, we're all capable of going to dark, ugly places, places no one who knows us would think us capable of visiting. It seems obvious, but it's especially powerful against the backdrop of the sixties, with Vietnam and the riots stirring severe societal discontent. It's a dark twist on the Mystery Date game that will be seen later; girls then may have fantasized about the "right" date showing up at their door, but the worst thing that happened in the game was that the guy was dressed poorly or had a blue-collar job, not that he'd brutally murder you.
Anyway, Megan and Don appear, and since Joyce is the Number One Fan in the Megan Calvet Appreciation Club, she calls Megan over to look at the photos as Don tells her he'll see her later. Mistaking his farewell as intended for the whole group (or not), Ginzo calls out in his crest-the-ridge voice that he'll see Don later, and Don's answering facial expression should be next to the dictionary entry for "Not if I see you first." As Megan checks them out, Joyce speculates that this story will make the next cover, as they've covered the riots already and there have already been five that summer. "I say it's better than even money Mr. Luce finds a tasteful way to do this." No one asks how that might be possible, but this is enough to get Ginzo to bark at her to put the photos away, as the way they're all excited by them is disgusting, but Joyce is unfazed, and says that one girl survived to tell the tale, with Stan adding that she hid under the bed, and Speck (the real-life murderer, not actually mentioned in the episode) lost count. Ginzo gets up and leaves, calling them "sickos" in his Sonny-from-Dog Day Afternoon voice, and when he's gone, Peggy admits that he's right. And I agree, but if Ginzo is that offended by inappropriate jokes about tragic crimes, it's a good thing he lives in the pre-Twitter era.