Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 1 USERS: F YOU GRADE IT Do You Know How "Taps" Sounds on a Ukulele?
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 4 | Aired on 09.06.2009
Outside the room, as he's leaving, Bronzo tells Don he'd love to buy him dinner and run some slogans by him. Don's saved from having to answer by Pete pointing out to Bronzo that they'll be the ones doing the buying, so all Don has to do is shake Bronzo's stupid, stupid hand. When Bronzo and the boys are gone, Don, still somewhat in disbelief, tells Pryce, "During the Depression I saw somebody throw a loaf of bread off the back of a truck. It was more dignified." That person must have been wearing an ascot too. Pryce, mildly sarcastically, wonders in response if Don will have trouble sleeping tonight. "I've seen clients far more defenseless than he." One wonders if they're hanging out with Duck at the moment. Pete then returns from walking Bronzo to the elevator and makes a gleeful remark about fatted calves, which only prompts Don to ask if he told Pryce who "this idiot's father is." You see, his dad, "Horace Sr.," is very connected to Bertram, and he's not sure either man would approve of what just happened. Pete sniffs that Bronzo is his age, and just because he was born with a lot of money doesn't mean they shouldn't make his dream come true. Don walks away in mild disgust, but when he's gone, Pryce remarks to Pete, "Nicely done, my boy." I'd detail all the ways Pete could read too much into that comment, but I would like to accomplish something else in my lifetime.
Gene, dressed in a suit, enters the kitchen with some folders in hand and tells "Elizabeth" to get off her feet for the baby's sake. Betty tells him to wait until she finishes washing the dishes, to which Gene responds that she's "cleaning up for the maid, just like your mother." Well, at least he can tell them apart now, and I'm sure Betty's pregnancy boobs thank him for it. Betty sits at the table and gets out a cigarette, but he holds out a hand: "I don't like watching you commit suicide." Rather than ask him if there are any further orders he'd like to give her in her own home, she settles for inquiring as to what he wants, so he opens the folders, in which are his post-death arrangements. Betty would rather not discuss this subject, but he plows on, telling her that funerals are a dishonest business -- people don't want to think about them, and that's how they get you. "Remember what happened with your mother?" I'm picturing wacky antics involving switched cremation urns, but Gene doesn't elaborate, instead basically saying that Betty will be his executor, given that she took him in, and he'd also like her to have her mother's expensive coats. Chinchilla or no, however, Betty continues to be over this conversation, and starts to get up, but he grabs her wrist and sighs that he shielded her, and as a result she's too sensitive. Sally would get a good chuckle out of that if she weren't already planning to cry for the rest of her life. Gene goes on that the way he raised her is probably why she "married this joker. If you'd even known what was possible!" Betty takes this all in curiously but noncommittally, but when Gene blusters that he's done and they don't have to talk about it again, she decides to speak her mind, saying she doesn't understand why they have to discuss such things when he can see so clearly how much they upset her. "It's selfish and morbid. I'm your little girl." Of course, those words seem a little ironic considering she's now standing over him while eleven months pregnant, but she plows on that she knows it must be horrible to be facing death such as he is (I'm paraphrasing). "But can't you keep it to yourself?" She stomps off, folder in hand, as Gene wonders if giving dead animals to someone so sensitive was the smartest final act he could have done in this world.
Ken, Harry, and Sal approach Don's secretary, and Ken somewhat apprehensively asks what kind of mood Don's in. The girl, just as nervously, replies, "I'm never right." Heh. Don then opens the door and asks if he needs a coat, and his tone of voice doesn't exactly suggest he's in an Ann-Margret-like mood, which makes it all the tougher on Ken to break the news that the planned director for the Patio commercial dropped out and left them high and dry. After asking what Ken would have done if the need to fire the director had arisen and getting a "Durr, hadn't thought of that" fly-catching expression in response, Don tells him to have Sal do it, as it's a single-shot endeavor for which Sal did the storyboards. "I could go on, but I don't think I should have to." And there's the Don Draper single-sentence life philosophy I've been searching for. He leaves, and Sal restrains himself from acting out the storyboards in delight. For now, at least.
After a closeup on a flyer offering free kittens, we see Peggy move it aside so she can post her own ad, one looking for a roommate. It's typewritten and asks for a woman who's "clean, responsible, considerate" and also "serious and financially secure." I'd hope Peggy knows that if she gets even three of those five it will be like winning the lottery.
At home, Don sips a drink and reads the paper as Bobby and Gene appear in the kitchen handling a box full of the latter's mementos. One of said trinkets is a Victory medal Gene was awarded in France and which he takes great care to show off to Don before commenting, "I should have another for beating the clap!" Given his proclivities, so should Don. After a great geezerly laugh, Gene pulls out the next exhibit, a German spiked helmet with a hole marking the spot through which Gene apparently shot the helmet's previous owner dead. He goes on to muse that he killed a lot of Germans, and when Bobby tells him war is bad, he acknowledges that that might be true, "but it makes a man outta you." He puts the helmet on Bobby's head as he adds, "Ask your pop!" and Don, who's been watching much of this with an air of making up his mind exactly when to intervene, is happy enough for the cue as he tells Gene to stop it already. Bobby asks if he can't keep the helmet, and despite the fact that Don points out that there was a person in it, Gene tells him to keep it on. Don, of course, does not merely accept this challenge to his authority, and gets up, physically removes the thing from his son's head, and leaves the room. But while that last move may have added to his macho swagger, it also means he's not there to see Gene get a mischievous look on his face and remove a Japanese fan from the box with these words, "There was this girl." Of course, with only general principles to guide me, I'd guess that Don would find this particular subject a lot less distasteful.Oh, dear. With Sal writing something in bed while wearing pajamas that leave almost as little of him exposed as would a full-body condom, Kitty emerges from the bathroom wearing a sheer lime-green negligee. Erroneously thinking that this effort will increase her chances of spousal relations, she initiates some kissing, but after a few tepid moments he calls an end to it by saying he's working. She worriedly says something's wrong, not realizing that if she really wants to get her husband in the mood, all she has to do is invite Ken over for dinner again. He vaguely says that he's not himself, which is hilarious in that you'd think in that case he might actually hit that, but she repeats that for the last few months, something's been wrong. "I don't need that much, but...I do need tending." Funny how that seems so much more delicate than, say, "plowing," even though we're talking about the same thing. Eventually, Sal blames his work situation for his lack of sexual enthusiasm, saying that with the advent of photography, his days as an illustrator are numbered, and now he's nervous, as he has a crack at something that actually has a future. Kitty encouragingly says it's been building to this, "and tomorrow you'll triumph and come home a conquering hero." Sal, however, is doubly concerned b