Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A+ | 3 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Draper's Eight
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 13 | Aired on 11.08.2009
Don enters SC and takes a long, contemplative look around the main area. He sees a secretary remove a piece of paper from her typewriter and crumple it up...
...which throws him into a memory of his father doing likewise. Instead of an unruly typewriter as the impetus, however, Archie is peeved that he and his fellow farm cooperative members, who are all seated around the Whitman kitchen table, are getting screwed on the price their grain will fetch this year. As Dick, who looks eight to ten, watches, Archie tells the lot of them that he's got a silo, and he'll simply store his grain until winter, when the price goes back up. He bails on the cooperative before kicking the members out of his kitchen, and instead of being surprised I'm sure everyone's wondering how he lasted this long. We focus on young Dick filing this one away in the part of his brain that stores Memories That Will Someday Make Good Flashbacks...
...and then Don purposefully strides in a direction away from his office...
...and sometime later, Don comes in to see Bertram, who wonders what's so urgent that he had to be woken up. Heh. Don gives him the news, and Bertram is like, "Oh," with a tone that suggests he's resigned to his fate. I'd suggest at least bringing something warm to sit on, though. Don, however, suggests that they buy SC back from PPL, which leads to a fight about risk and old men and it's wee-acted as always but I'm distracted, because seriously: Can Roger really afford to pony up his share after Mona took him for a king's ransom? Although I suppose the sale came through after he told her he was leaving, so maybe it's a non-issue. Anyway, Bertram asks why Don cares so much, and he tells him that since his marriage is ending, the one part of Don Draper he still can hang onto is his job and...oh, no, what he actually says is that he's "sick of being batted around like a Ping-Pong ball. I want to work -- I want to build something of my own. How do you not understand that?" Bertram does, but suggests that Don may not have the stomach for the attendant realities. But I think what Bertram doesn't realize is that Betty's comment about Don not understanding money cuts both ways -- his inability to know how to be rich means he doesn't fear not being rich, if that makes sense, so the Dick Whitman in him is like, "Try me." Bertram says they'll need accounts, and while American Tobacco would go a long way, "that's Roger." Don shifts uncomfortably at the idea of pulling Roger into their scheme but manages to stay calm for the moment, but when Bertram learns how much time they have, he says they have to talk to Roger now. Don's like, "You talk to him," but Bertram throws it back in his face: "Do you want to do this or not?" Time to employ whatever sucking-up skills you've got, Don. If it makes you feel any better about it, it's not the only time in this episode you'll need them.