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On the heels of Don opening up to Peggy last week, it makes sense that this week he follows by voicing over a bunch of his innermost thoughts to the audience. First, though, Joey pisses off Joan yet again, and when she calls him into her office to chew him out, he sends it ten horribly disrespectful and inappropriate levels up, which is terrible timing since she's super upset that her husband is really REALLY about to leave for basic training. The result is that Joan seems to want to get rid of him even though Creative needs him to retool a Mountain Dew campaign, and when he leaves a pornographic drawing of her in plain sight, she essentially tells all the boys that she can't wait for them to die in Vietnam, causing Peggy to take the drawing in to Don and demand justice. He tells her just to fire Joey, which she does, and as much as I'll miss Matt Long it was well enough justified. Joan, however, doesn't appreciate Peggy stepping in to handle something she was already all over, and with her typically acerbic economy of words lets her know how much she thinks Peggy screwed both of them. Sisters aren't yet quite doing it for themselves, apparently.
Don has finally admitted to himself that he has a drinking problem, which we learn about via a journal he's keeping, and said revelation also causes him to see his and everyone else's alcohol consumption in a new light. He's also taking some exercise at a local pool, which lets him know he has a smoking problem as well, but he's only interested in working on one issue at a time. He takes Bethany out for dinner, and after she tells him she needs a bit more from him as far as their relationship goes, as luck would have it, Betty and Henry happen upon them while out for some dinner about Henry being involved in an upcoming John Lindsay political campaign, and Bethany seems secretly heartened by the fact that she and Betty are rather similar in physical type. She hasn't laid eyes on Faye yet, though. Betty, for her part, is rather upset at seeing Don out, which causes a nasty enough fight between her and Henry on the way home while Bethany is blowing Don in the back of a cab. The day, Betty apologizes, but Henry's not satisfied, and calls Don for a little dick-measuring contest regarding space in the garage, and no, I'm not making that up, because boys are stupid. Sometime after, Francine (WOO!) shows up, and Betty tells her what happened, prompting Francine to advise her to tread lightly where Don is concerned.
The day, Don observes Faye yelling at, presumably, her boyfriend on the office pay phone, and later, after they go over some work, he invites her out to dinner, and she accedes to a Saturday date. In the cab afterwards, they make out heavily, but when she suggests she come back to his place, he does the right thing for the first time all season and tells her he's only going to take her home. He follows this coup up by semi-crashing Baby Gene's party, and even though Henry is displeased, Betty has made peace with Don being involved with the kids, and a small part of her might even long for the time when the two of them were together. Honey, all I can say is they didn't get Francine out of mothballs for nothing, you know?
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We start with a long shot of Don diving into a laned pool as he voices over that it's said that as soon as you have to cut down on your drinking, you have a drinking problem, and I'm glad that he's finally becoming aware of his alcohol abuse, even if it sounds like the "they" in this case is Bazooka Joe. Cut to Don writing these DVOs down in a journal as he goes on that his mind is a jumble and he can't organize his thoughts, "and typing feels like work." And I'm guessing with Miss Blankenship as his secretary, he's having to do a lot more of it to cut down on random spelling errors and his correspondence ending up in Timbuktu. By the way, even though Don is home and this is apparently a day off work, he's dressed and groomed and not entertaining women whose names he forgot/never knew/is not interested in because they're prostitutes, so between this and the journal, it seems like last week's interaction with Peggy plus the closure of Anna's death may have inspired him at least to try to pull himself out of his downward spiral. Also, while we're here, it's definitely a departure for this show to employ voice-over so heavily when (a) I don't remember it ever having used it and (b) it by definition somewhat sacrifices the subtext and ambiguity that the show revels in. However, I think it makes sense for this episode given that, thanks to both the increasing prevalence of people talking about their feelings this season and him being at a real crossroads, he's engaging in self-examination for the first time in his life; we really do need to know what he's thinking in order to advance the story they're trying to tell here.
Anyway, Don sips some coffee as he confesses he's never written more than two hundred and fifty words at a time, not even in high school, and if he actually existed I'd love to show him a recap so he could blanch at the length and then laugh at me. He pronounces his old self lazy and then expresses his regret that he never graduated, as "everything could have been different." If he's saying that he then could have gone on to college, I hate to disappoint him, but he wouldn't even have made it past the application process writing only two hundred and fifty words. Either that, or I did it waaaaaaay wrong.
Cut back to the pool, where Don finishes up a lap and then coughs in such a smokerly way that the lifeguard asks him if he's okay, and Don waves him away all "Just let me hack some yellow stuff up into your pool and then I'll do another couple laps." Not that he's the only one, I'm sure.
Later, Don sits contemplatively in the locker room while the viewing audience contemplates him in a towel and nothing else, and then we cut to the exterior of the building, which lets us know that he's at the New York Athletic Club. Well, nice workout if you can get it. The Rolling Stones' "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" kicks up as Don takes in the surroundings for a bit and tells us that summer is coming -- he can smell it. And I think the point of this scene is to let us know that Don is waking up and seeing the world around him again, which is good, but if I were going to pick a place and time to reignite my olfactory senses, New York on the verge of summer would not be my choice. I mean, he's on Central Park South here -- that's where they have the horses, you know?
Anyway, the song continues as Don strides into the office but cuts off abruptly when he reaches Miss Blankenship, possibly because the thick dark glasses she's wearing startle it. Don asks how her surgery was (we'll learn it was for cataracts, unsurprisingly), and she says it was a nightmare, what with the ether and the blindness, "and then I got the goggles." She says she's okay to work, though, but when he offers her more time off if she needs it, she assures him, "I'm fine, Roger." To be fair, it wouldn't exactly have shocked me if she made that mistake before the surgery. However, she's just kidding around, which makes me wonder if they gave her some ether to go, so he asks her, since he left his book at home, to get him Bethany's number...
...while up the hall, Stan and Joey are manhandling the office candy machine, while Harry tries to direct and Peggy amusingly tells a female co-worker, "I feel like Margaret Mead." Heh. All this effort is in aid of trying to retrieve some change that the machine denied Ken and also Joey's watch, which he lost in the rescue effort, but after a particularly loud attempt to jiggle everything loose, Joan strides out and demands to know what's going on. After some explanation that goes nowhere and some sharp words between Joan and Joey, Pete comes out and, apparently having used his week off to work on his patrician accent, asks what all the fuss is about, since he was in the "midst of an extremely important telephone call." Joey snarks that Joan was just handing out demerits, prompting her to order him into her office, and on the way, he shows off to the guys by saying it's going to be a "private spanking, just like my dream." If it doesn't work out that way, Don's got a number you can call. Pete hilariously wonders when they got a vending machine, and that's all Vincent Kartheiser has to do this week. No wonder he loves this gig so much.
In her office, Joan tells Joey that as a freelancer, she knows he spends time in other work environments, but the way he's behaving won't be tolerated here. "I should let you know that there's a problem now between us." I hope I transcribed that correctly; I can't bring myself to watch it again, given that those words coming from Joan make up the scariest sentence in the universe. Joey wonders why she's always on his case, given that Stan is worse than he is, and hilariously, Joan considers that for a moment like she knows it's absolutely true, but offers that perhaps Stan is better at his job. Not that I'm not on her side, but that does seem like the kind of response that's designed to escalate things, but after Joey laughs and she calls him arrogant, he asks, "Me? What do you do around here besides walking around like you're trying to get raped?" Oh, Joey, I didn't think you could make my Dead To Me folder, but that was offensive enough to skip any deliberation about it, even without knowing about the incident from two seasons ago. The only good thing about that comment is that if Joan wanted to, she could tell Roger about it and he'd eviscerate you with his bare hands.
On his way out, Joey sneers that he's not some wide-eyed young girl and as such doesn't need "some madam from a Shanghai whorehouse to show me the ropes," and I will say that at least when this kid burns a bridge, he doesn't half-ass the job. It's intriguing and terrifying to see Joan, always a master of getting both fascination and respect from men, being given neither from this new generation of men, and it obviously is difficult for her even to grasp what just happened, so when Peggy comes in the other door, Joan impotently tells her this is her office, "not a thoroughfare. Take the extra steps -- you could use them." Unjustifiedly nasty, certainly, but Peggy at least brings it down by saying that Joan's right, at least about the part where she shouldn't be barging in, and Joan's anger deflates and she tells Peggy to go ahead -- she's leaving anyway. Peggy wisely still withdraws the way she came, and as Joan gets ready, she hears and sees the boys laughing in the other room. Whatever it is, Joan, you don't want to know, and having seen the episode once already, I know of what I speak.
Miss Blankenship is shuffling back toward Don's desk, and her awkward gait is not merely due to her orthopedic shoes -- she's laden down with a refill of Don's liquor supply, and if she's the one who has to fetch the stuff regularly I'm surprised she doesn't have sciatica as well as cataracts. As soon as she's there, though, he tells her to take the bottles back and get him some cigarettes, and while I'm all for him cutting down on his consumption I thin
k it might have been nice to give the blind old lady a heads up before she did her beast of burden impression. Miss Blankenship, however, changes the subject and tells Don that Betty called to remind him he can't have the kids on the upcoming weekend, as Bobby's birthday party is on Sunday. Don corrects her that it's Gene's birthday, prompting this response: "Did you want me to buy him or her a gift?" Hee. I think whoever writes for Miss Blankenship should have to pay the show and not the other way around. Don, out of energy for this conversation, tells her no, so she turns her attention back to the liquor bottles. Mustn't they have a cart around there somewhere? How do they lug around all that ham?
Joan arrives home and finds Greg just out of the shower, and after he smiles about the pleasant surprise, they make out for a bit, and then she asks if he minds that she's home early. I'd be surprised if there weren't some off-camera evidence that he's perfectly happy to see her, but regardless, he points out that she's the one who doesn't want to watch him pack or even to say goodbye, and she admits that's true. He takes her into the bedroom and tries to reassure her that things will be fine, but when she wonders whom she's going to talk to, he suggests that she try her friends at work. I don't know if it's "friends" or "work" that's the more ill-advised thing to mention at the moment, but either way, Joan bursts into tears, and I've already told you how green that Kryptonite is for me, so let's just say Greg finds an enterprising way to get her to stop crying and leave it at that.
Don dishes himself out a can of Dinty Moore beef stew, which reminds me of overnight camping trips when I was ten, and also helps himself to a can of Budweiser, which probably would have made said trips more enjoyable. After taking in a few seconds of a news broadcast about Vietnam, DVO says he hopes it doesn't turn into another Korea (ouch), and after complaining about the little-girlness of writing down the day's experiences, he confesses that he keeps thinking about Gene: "He was conceived in a moment of desperation, and born into a mess." Well, at least his dad knows how that goes. As we cut back to the pool, Don tells us some things he'd like to do, including "climb Mount Kilimanjaro," and that's a worthy goal but I think to pull that off he'd have to quit smoking, and I don't think Lee Garner Jr. will allow that. Don amends that first one to say that he'd be happy going anywhere in Africa, and then goes on that he'd like to "gain a modicum of control over the way I feel." Girlish or not, I think the journal is a step in the right direction. He lets himself sink to the bottom of the pool...
...and then he's got Peggy, Stan, and Ken in his office, and when Stan hands him a drink, he takes it but then stares at it like he's forgotten what to do with it, and it's a good thing rye doesn't have feelings, because if I were that one glass of Canadian Club that Don Draper refused to drink I think I'd throw myself down the drain in shame right then and there.
Ken snaps Don out of his reverie by telling the group that the whole Mountain Dew campaign has gone pear-shaped -- apparently some bottlers voiced opposition to an occult-themed design, and as a result even though it was Pepsi's own artists that drew it, in this situation, as Ken puts it, "Pepsi is the tail and the bottlers are the dog," and as such they need to change the design. Don sighs that the whole idea is tainted now before instructing Peggy to start over, and she exposits that she did that one with Joey before asking if he wants Stan to take over. Stan pipes up that he's being spread awfully thin, but even though that's the only way I can abide him, Don still sees that as a problem and barks for Miss Blankenship to get Joan in there. Peggy and Ken make light fun of Miss Blankenship, but Don is more concerned with staring at the drinks in their hands, and the voice-over is one thing but the slow-motion close-ups I think I could have done without, especially since they don't stop Don from eventually taking a sip from his own glass.
Some more overly cinematic shots are thankfully interrupted by Joan's arrival, and when Don tells her he'd like to make Joey full-time for a couple of weeks, and instead of laying waste to the entire room, Joan says she'll have to check on his availability before asking if he's really the right person for the job. After Ken and Don express some confusion as to why she would ask that, Joan closes the door and says she's been hearing a lot of complaints about him. "He's not a gentleman with the girls." Oh, dear. Joan is of course historically extremely protective of the women under her care, but I wonder if maybe she's making this up rather than come clean about the fact that Joey directly disrespected her, because if one of the girls had really complained to her, I think she would have brought it up earlier rather than wait until confronted with the prospect of full-time Joey.
Anyway, she says that the source of the incident was "an extremely blue joke," and Peggy wonders when, but it's unclear whether she doesn't believe Joan or if she's just wondering how she missed out on the office gossip. Don tells Joan, essentially, to get over it, and when she's gone, Stan grins that he knows the joke in question, but Peggy won't let him get more than a few words into it before asking if they're done. Don dismisses them, but as Peggy leaves, he asks her to "tell Ray Charles to come in here and clean this up." Inappropriate and insensitive, sure, but after Miss Blankenship's comment about "Negroes" last week I'm inclined to let it stand. Well, also because HA!
In his office, Harry is telling Joey some Peyton Place-related bullshit, the upshot of which is that Harry thinks Joey could be a TV actor, and he's got the connections to make it happen. Joey's like, don't know about that, and looks skeeved out when Harry tells him how handsome he is and that he already showed his people in California a picture of him from the Christmas party. At least he didn't ask Harry if he kept one for himself. Harry's girl then buzzes to let them know that Peggy is outside for Joey, and Joey takes the opportunity to thank Harry for thinking of him and hightail it out of there...
...and outside, he tells Peggy, "Everyplace I've worked, there's always some old fairy who comes on to me, but that was the weirdest by far." HA! I mean, to be honest, I'm surprised Joey hasn't heard the Casting Couch Call before, but the fact that Harry tried to do something relatively nice (if pretentious and self-important) and got labeled a lecherous old queen for it tickles me to no end. Peggy gets to her business, which is to ask what Joey did to Joan, and when he smugly tells her he told her off, Peggy informs him that he shouldn't have, as Joan's important around there. However, Joey dismissively tells her that there's a Joan in every company, and she's an overblown secretary who tells everyone what to do, adding that his mother was exactly the same. "She even wore a pen around her neck so everyone would stare at her tits." I never saw Joey's mother, obviously, but Joan has been doing that a lot lately, although frankly I'm surprised anyone would think they need the help. I mean, even Miss Blankenship couldn't miss those things. They've got their own gravitational force. Peggy doesn't give up, though, saying that Joan and Pryce basically run the place, and Joey tells her okay, he's got the message, before looking at his watch and wondering with a sigh if it's time to go yet. Exhausted, Peggy leaves him, and I hope for her sanity's sake she doesn't have to deal with Joey or Stan for the rest of the day.
After they enter the anteroom of a fancy restaurant, Henry introduces Betty to a political aide, "Ralph Stuben," who apolo
gizes for interrupting their evening (they had been at the theater) but says that "the Congressman" wanted this done immediately and in person. Henry tells Ralph that Betty, as a political wife, doesn't mind, and hilariously, just as he's assuring Ralph of her discretion, Betty spots Don inside the restaurant with Bethany and looks like she's going to start screaming bloody murder. She valiantly recovers and suggests they get a drink at the bar, which is certainly smart enough given that it will provide a change of venue and that she really, really needs one, and then Henry spots Don himself and catches on, but Ralph says their table will only be a minute...
...so we might as well check in with Don and Bethany, and when we see Don waving the waiter off from pouring him champagne I wonder if the booze industry in the Mad Men universe is about to have its worst quarter since Roger had that heart attack. Bethany tries to bring some pop culture into their conversation by asking if Don's a Felix or an Oscar, and Don admits that while he'd rather be an Oscar, he's probably a Felix. That sounds like a response calculated for his audience rather than one consistent with the picture of a diner waitress's uniform slung over his bureau, but regardless, it fails to have the intended effect, as Bethany tells him that every date feels like the first with him, and not in a good way -- she knows he must be seeing other people. Don points out that they're together now, but Bethany thinks a few dates aren't sufficient to get to know someone -- "it takes intense, prolonged contact." Don doesn't make a lecherous raise-eyebrow comeback to that one, which probably shows as well as anything that he really is cutting down on the sauce, and when she asks if he doesn't want to be close with anyone, he simply says that he does, in fact. She informs him that she's going to need more from him, but he amusedly counters that clearly they are from different generations, because he doesn't remember women pushing this hard, and adds that he's not seeing anyone else -- he's just been working. I believe him when he says he has no other entanglements, but even at his booziest the only woman I think he saw more often than Bethany was his prostitute, so take this with a grain of salt, honey.
Bethany softens as she tells him she gets excited when he calls, and then it's disappointing when she doesn't hear from him, but their discussion is interrupted by Henry coming over with Betty and Ralph in tow and giving him a short and gruff greeting, probably having calculated that this will be best in terms of controlling a potential situation. He might have been better advised to have a little confab with his wife first, though. Don is slightly more congenial as he introduces "Miss van Nuys," and Bethany offers her given name, but Henry only tersely instructs them (well, that's the tone he used) to enjoy their dinner, while Betty and Ralph say nothing before they all walk away. Bethany's taken aback at the chill in the air, and I can hardly blame her given that the other three approached them, but it makes more sense when Don informs her that it was his ex-wife and her husband, "and some slob who's about to have the worst dinner of his life." Heh. When Bethany looks over at Betty, the camera goes in close as if to emphasize the fact that she and Bethany are both blonde, of similar physical type, and significantly younger than Don, and Bethany looks secretly pleased. Honey, don't get your hopes up -- guys like Don can sense it, and before you know it you're masturbating in the Barbizon. (Oops, I'm getting ahead of myself.)
Across the room, Betty stiffly sips her cocktail as Ralph thanks Henry for "securing the governor's endorsement for Congressman Lindsay," which he supposes was no small feat. He then goes on that "hypothetically," Lindsay has his eye on '72 (the Presidential race, although he doesn't specify that), and he would want to form his team around Henry. Henry leans back and smiles in the most indescribably smug and irritating way, not that Betty notices, so busy is she downing her cocktail with extreme prejudice and giving Don a psychotic side-eye worthy of a young Pete Campbell. Henry eventually asks her if she knows what she wants, but Betty excuses herself, not even really allowing the guys to get to their feet before she's out the door. Henry covers by saying that Betty gets flushed after one drink, which is hilarious to consider given that she used to be married to Don, but even though Ralph easily admits that his wife has the opposite problem, Henry looks in the direction Betty went and appears displeased. Well, guy, you didn't exactly cover yourself in glory with Don over there. Manners aren't just for the wives to learn, you know?
Upstairs, Betty locks herself in a stall and tries to recover, but even a cigarette doesn't seem to calm her nerves...
...and then later, on the car ride home, Henry is chewing her out for apparently having said she needed a drink, although we didn't hear that, and if he's referring to her suggestion that they get something at the bar, that seems more than a little unfair, especially the part where he asks if she's a "wino." Betty gets off a reasonable comeback when she points out that if he's going to tell her what she can and can't say, no thanks, since she was in a marriage like that before, and it is worth remembering how badly Don often treated her even outside of the cheating. She adds that she hates Don, a sentiment that Henry finds disturbingly strong, adding that he doesn't like seeing his ex-wife either, but he doesn't hate her because he's an adult. Betty starts to try to bring it down, asking who cares about Don, but Henry answers the rhetorical question by saying that she obviously does, and he's taking up too much space in her life and her heart. Betty, sensing the obvious jealousy, says that's ridiculous, but Henry wonders if they rushed into the marriage, like VEGAS WASN'T HIS BRILLIANT IDEA. Betty takes it one step further, pointing out it's a little late to be questioning decisions given that the fact that she was six months pregnant when they met didn't slow him down one bit, and then tells him he can just drop her off at the house, "because you don't want to live there anyway. And you can stay in a hotel, or wherever you were when I met you. In your mansion, with your servants." I just hope if they get divorced, this time she remembers to take what's hers. Henry tells her to shut up, which is a brilliant comeback from the mind that's going to put Lindsay in the White House, but she's got him dead to rights and he knows it...
...so why not head over to a cheerier vehicle, as Bethany and Don are making out in the back seat of a cab. After an appraising look the driver's way, Bethany lowers herself, um, out of frame, and DVO offers, "She's a sweet girl. And she wants me to know her. But I already do." If that's true, it's pretty clear that he already knows she's not for him, but if that's what's on his mind during this situation I'm going to guess her technique could use some work too. As we cut to him in his bathrobe late at night, he writes, "People tell you who they are, but we ignore it, because we want them to be who we want them to be." Still not two hundred and fifty words, but he's getting somewhere, especially since he's echoing a side of the season's theme that Faye has been trumpeting ever since she arrived. Of course, he's also finding that it cuts bot
h ways, and given that people expect him to be a total lush, the difficulty in quitting or even cutting down on his drinking won't be limited to his own desires. I mean, can you imagine the Greek tragedy of Roger's reaction were Don to become a teetotaler?
Bethany gets out of the cab as she says, "To be continued," which is pretty much a promise that Don will have an all-access pass soon if only he calls to pick it up, but as if we already didn't know that wasn't going to happen, DVO speculates, "I bet she was thinking of that line all night." Ouch. Probably true, but still. DVO continues that he looked up at the Barbizon and thought of all the women pleasuring themselves on the way to Sleepytown, and later, in bed, he admits that he enjoys sleeping alone, as you can stretch out like a skydiver and hit cool patches when you need to. "I just appreciate it more." The good news on that is that it's easily arranged. Although it would be even easier if he were a fugster.
Don gets off the elevator at SCDP, and passes Faye engaging in some most uncharacteristic yelling into the phone: "I want my key back, and I don't want to see your shorts on my floor, and I don't want you complaining that I don't cook, 'cause I don't cook!" I hope she's not recruiting for her focus group here, because the pitch could use some work. As Don heads in, opening the door for some randoms as he goes, Faye yells at "David" to go shit in the ocean, as if seeing Jaws when I was six didn't give me a lifetime reason to avoid it already.
Betty awakens to find Henry already dressed and on his way out, and once again, he's not exactly impressing me with his ability to deal with crises in a constructive manner when he passive-aggressively tells her he wasn't going to wake her because he thought she could use the sleep. I mean, ordinarily I'd find that most considerate, but not the way he's doing it. Betty tells him she's sorry and asks him to come over to her, which is the more adult action if you ask me, but even though she expresses remorse and explains that Don was the only man she'd ever been with, he barely softens at all and tells her he'll call later. Of course, she is omitting a little encounter with CAPTAIN AWESOME, but I can understand why she'd want to keep that a secret. Well, actually, no I can't. Shout it from the rooftops, Betty! People will understand, at least if they see him!
In the garage, Henry starts the car, but when he notices a bunch of boxes in front of him labeled "Draper," he drives the car into them before backing out. This is the man being tapped to create a Presidential campaign, people. No wonder it didn't work out.
We get a close-up on Joey making a cocktail out of vodka and Mountain Dew, which he calls "jet fuel." Peggy corrects him that it's "rocket fuel," and when Stan and that guy who was in with Don and Faye that one time join them, she goes on that you need three ingredients for a cocktail. "Vodka and Mountain Dew is an emergency." Heh. We then see Joan go into Pryce's office and tell him about Don's wish to have Joey on full-time for the three weeks, and she certainly didn't break any speed records bringing that request down the hall, did she? Pryce disclaims any interest in the decision, prompting Joan to close the door and tell him that she thinks the vending machine is a troublemaker. Oh, Joan. I hate to see you cry, but being ineffective might be even worse. Pryce demurs, saying that he even wants to add a sandwich machine, and when Joan tells him that there have been a lot of complaints, she receives this reply: "Did you tell them to call the number?" Joan looks like she'd like to do a lot of things to him at the moment, but none of them of a sexual nature. Too bad they didn't keep the door open...
...because outside, the boys wonder what Pryce and Joan are up to behind the closed door, and after Stan mutters that it's an "unholy alliance," Joey picks up his pad and sketches a depiction of, according to what he tells the boys, Pryce giving it to Joan from behind, prompting Peggy to leave in disgust. When she's gone, Stan says that she's "pioneering the science of wet blanketry," earning this response from Joey: "You love her." Joey, I've said my piece about your chauvinism, but know that I'll miss your ability to truth-tell in certain instances, such as this one.
Don is sitting motionless in front of his typewriter when Miss Blankenship buzzes that Henry is on the phone. Don doesn't get quite the WTF expression I would have expected on his face; instead, he picks up, and after some stilted greetings, Henry tells Don that he bought a boat that he'd like to keep in the garage, so Don's things are going to have to go. Well, the good news is that someone in this episode is behaving more transparently than Joan, not that I'd expect any different from half of the two people who couldn't have been worse at having an affair if they tried. Henry offers to put the stuff in storage and take it off the rent, and I'm glad to hear that Don went through with his threat to charge them for staying in the house, but Don tells him he'd rather come get it himself. Henry pauses and says that Gene's birthday party is on Sunday, and when Don says he knows, Henry continues, "So I think Saturday would be best, don't you?" Again, this is not the way to achieve détente, but I'm a lot more inclined to allow this one, because that shit was cold. Don can't even disguise the fact that he's wounded by that one, looking like he swallowed a bee, and when Henry tells him the S.S. Make Believe is coming the week, Don tells him he'll be there at noon on Saturday and hangs up without further ado. We then see him take an appraising look at his bar, but instead of doing what he's done all season, he buzzes Miss Blankenship and asks for coffee. Excellent effort, Don -- just make sure she doesn't make assumptions and Irish it up.
Peggy comes in to Joan with a vending-machine complaint, and it's not like Joan's thrilled to hear it, but she gets even less so when she notices a drawing taped to the outside of her window depicting her rather busty self giving Pryce head with the caption "Tally-Ho!" I'll admit the tagline made me laugh, but it's all to do with Pryce, especially when you consider his little dalliance earlier in the season. With Peggy in tow, Joan marches out to the break area and asks Joey, Stan, and that random guy who it was that made "that pornographic drawing," and when she gets only puerile taunts in return, she takes a few moments before blowing her stack, telling the boys she can't wait for them to get shipped off to Vietnam. "You will be pining for the day when someone was trying to make your life easier. When you're over there, and you're in the jungle and they're shooting at you, remember you're not dying for me, because I never liked you." Forget everything I said about Joan no longer commanding respect, and Christina Hendricks sold the hell out of that.
As Joan leaves the scene, Peggy says her name, but Joan has got her groove back, and calmly tells her not to worry -- she's not going home. Joey wonders what's wrong with Joan, like he expected her to take the drawing with good humor, and Peggy, upset, reminds him that she told him not to do it. She grabs the thing off the wall, and this is where she screws up, because even though her heart's in the right place she didn't take the time to realize that Joan was cool, calm, and collected, and thus perfectly happy with how she handled the situation. Nevertheless...
...Peggy marches into Don's office and shows him the offending material, getting this reply: "Narrative, forced perspective...you sure Joey did this?" HA! Peggy doesn't see the humor, of course, once again saying that she told Joey not to, and I didn't catch this on first viewing but I think part of her problem with the situation is that Joey didn't heed her even though she's his superior, which offends her both as a woman and as, well, an ambitious person. You can decide for yourself which part is the more wounded. And on that front, Peggy gets more than she bargained for as Don tells her simply to go fire him. Taken aback, she admits she thought he would merely go discipline Joey, but Don tells her she can do what she likes, but she should trust him that she doesn't want to get him involved, as people will think she's a tattletale. Miss Blankenship then buzzes that Faye is there, so Don stands and dismisses Peggy with the advice to go out there and earn some respect if that's what she wants. Faye then enters, so Peggy leaves...
...and marches out to see the boys on a cloud of righteousness. She pulls Joey into her office, to Stan's palpable chagrin, and once inside, Joey tells Peggy he's sorry. Peggy gives him a chance to mean it as she tells him to repeat the apology to Joan, but Joey isn't so jazzed about the idea of Joan knowing for sure that he was the culprit, and after he unsuccessfully tries to sell the drawing as funny, he sighs that this is why he doesn't like working with women -- "You have no sense of humor." This statement being a thorn in capable women's sides for generations, it's no surprise that this is the last straw -- Peggy tells him he's fired, and sticks to her guns even when he belatedly offers to go apologize. It takes a few more tries for it to sink in, but when Joey finally gets it, he gives her a sardonic sneer and says he was wrong about her before dumping the contents of a banker's box onto the floor. Peggy winces, but she should count her blessings that she's not dealing with Burt Peterson here.
Back outside, Stan, the random, and Harry are flummoxed to see Joey carrying his stuff, and after he tells them the "fun's over" and shakes all their hands, Harry says he'll give him a call so they can have a drink. Joey's "I cannot even respond to your desperate advances right now" look is priceless, and I assume that's all she wrote for him. Matt Long, please don't wait years and years before showing up on my TV again. Peggy then appears and tells Stan to put Vick Chemical on the back burner, as he's now on Mountain Dew, and when she's gone again, Stan sighs, "Power of the poontang." Indeed, and she's not even the one who, like, cursed your very life.
In Don's office, he and Faye are discussing some boring research when he suggests they go to dinner. Faye, however, is far too savvy to let him get away with this oh-by-the-way method of asking her for a date, and points out he asked her to dinner the first time she was in his office and she turned him down, so what does he think has changed? It's not clear if she put it together that he witnessed her over-the-phone evisceration of her boyfriend, and he doesn't cop to it, instead somewhat lamely offering that he just thought the timing might be right. She goes with that, but suggests he ask her out properly "instead of tacking it on to a work day like an afterthought," so he asks if Saturday night is far enough in the future, and she replies, "Not normally, but you're in luck." Indeed. They wrap it up, and after Faye exits, Don kind of looks both apprehensive and excited, like he's not sure what he's getting himself into but he also can't wait to find out. Given my recent affinity for Faye, I know the feeling.
FRANCINE! God, how I've missed you. She comes in bearing a serving bowl, I'm assuming for the party, and Betty wastes no time in telling her how Henry is mad at her, but when Francine asks why, she only sighs that she just wants to get through the weekend, prompting Francine to point out that it's a two-year-old's party, and she'll have help. "And no one cares." HA! Stick around, girl. However, Francine then gets a look of realization, and she proves to be in the ballpark when she asks if "he" is coming; Betty replies that she told "him" about it. "Now I can only hope he won't show up and ruin it." In her defense, the last time she talked to him, he was barely in a condition to remember her name. Betty then tells Francine about the encounter with Don and Bethany, the latter of whom she describes as "all of fifteen," and if that's true maybe she's more precocious than I gave her credit for. Betty goes on to admit that she "misbehaved," prompting Francine to ask why she lets Don bother her. "We see him walking out with the kids some weekends. Carlton calls him 'that sad bastard.'" I usually try to come up with something slightly wittier than this, but "it takes one to know one" really seems to have a handle on this particular situation. Rather than go there, however, Betty snaps that any seeming patheticness on Don's part is an act, and he's living the life. "He doesn't get to have this family and that." Francine shakes her head warily: "Oh, Betty. You have terrible luck with entertaining." HA! Twice in one scene, and she's totally right, too. I think Betty should throw Henry out and settle into a nice Boston marriage with Francine here. After Betty nods in resignation, Francine considers what to say for a moment, but then counsels her to be careful, as Don has nothing to lose and she has everything. Betty takes in her friend's sage counsel...
...and then we cut to Peggy and Joan getting on the elevator together. Peggy's got a smile on her face like she's expecting to have a moment of sisterly solidarity with Joan, but when Peggy can't hold it in any longer and asks Joan if she heard what she did, Joan coldly replies, "I did. Good for you." Peggy is not so tone-deaf as to miss this one, and asks Joan to come again, so Joan tells her that now everyone in the office will know she solved Joan's problem and think Peggy's important. Peggy claims that she defended Joan, but even though I don't think it's quite so black and white, Joan is certainly on to something when she counters that Peggy was defending herself, and Peggy at least seems to see what she means by not contesting the issue further. She does, however, try to explain her actions by opining that the cartoon was disgusting, but Joan acidly replies that she'd already handled it, "and if I'd wanted to go further, one dinner with Mr. Kreutzer from Sugarberry Ham, and Joey would have been off it and out of my hair." Hmm, I wonder what she's getting at here. Is it just that Joey's first account was Sugarberry? Or is it possible that she knows about the little PR stunt they pulled?
Either way, Peggy tries to claim that it's all the same result, which (a) no it isn't, because Joan said that she had already handled it, meaning she didn't intend to go the extra mile and have Joey fired, and (b) as she's already been telling you, that is NOT THE POINT. Of course, if Peggy hadn't chosen to be so obtuse, Joan wouldn't be able to hit the home run here: "You want to be a big shot. Well, no matter how powerful we get around here, they can still just draw a cartoon. So all you've done is prove to them that I'm a meaningless secretary, and you're another humorless bitch." Oh, damn if she didn't go there. Her point made, Joan wishes Peggy a nice weekend before getting off the elevator, and Peggy, baldly shocked, takes a couple seconds before following. Good luck with that "nice weekend" part, hon.
Don writes that when a man walks into a room, he brings his whole life with him, and it's a good thing we're getting to the end because his journal is starting to sound like a fortune cookie here. Cut to him pulling up in front of the house to find that Henry has passive-aggressively stacked all the boxes out on the sidewalk already, and this whole episode has made me want to TP the guy's office. I should give Glen a call. Don doesn't bother to greet Henry, who's out mowing the front lawn; instead, DVO goes on that if you listen, a man will tell you how he got there; how he forgot where he was going, and then he woke up. "If you listen, he'll tell you about the time he thought he was an angel, or dreamt of being perfect." As we see Don ironically tossing the boxes into a dumpster, getting rid of vestiges of his old life, DVO
goes on that the man he's describing would then smile, content in his realization that the world isn't perfect. "We're flawed, because we want so much more." Henry comes in from mowing the lawn, removes his shirt, and passes Betty with yet another cold stare, like, I was never your biggest fan but I didn't peg you to be quite this insecure, guy. DVO finishes up by saying that we get things and then wish for what we had, and at home, dressed up in a casual suit, Don finally steels himself with a small belt of liquor, but it's understandable...
...because it's time for his al fresco date with Faye. After they're seated, she notices that he smells like chlorine, and he tells her how he's been swimming to clear his head, as he's been somewhat out of sorts lately. "And it's an effort to get in the water, but when you do, you're weightless, and you don't even sweat. And in the end, you're wrung out." Faye smiles and says she's been looking forward to this -- I'm going to guess she's talking about the date and not the swimming-related metaphors -- and Don tells her it wasn't exactly easy to get a reservation. Faye tells him he should have called her, as her dad is a candy-store owner and thus has mob connections. Okay, I could have danced around the subject a bit as she did, but in the end her meaning is as plain as mine, so why bother? Don smiles and asks what he's like, and Faye returns the favor as she says he's "a handsome, two-bit gangster like you." Cute, but the "two-bit" part makes me wonder if she knows just how much Don got when PPL bought SC.
Perhaps because of the nod to her Italian heritage, Don orders them two glasses of Chianti, and then Faye tells him that when she's out of sorts, she looks at the calendar, as there's usually something significant on the horizon. As much as I like her, I feel constrained to point out that for a lot of people, that would only make them more out of sorts, and Don kind of proves my point when he tells her it's his two-year-old's birthday, but he's not going to the party because he isn't welcome there. "He thinks that man's his father. Maybe that's okay." Faye opines that all Gene knows of the world is what Don shows him, which is pretty much what she told him in regard to Sally, so you'll forgive me if I'm glad that we're spared further platitudes by the arrival of the wine, with Don pausing almost imperceptibly before taking a sip. He then tells Faye that even though he's sometimes behaved in a manner that contraindicates this, he does admire her work, and when she seems flattered, he asks her to tell him a trade secret -- how does she get her people to do what she wants them to? In response, she paraphrases a rather famous fable of Aesop about the wind and the sun, ending with the moral: "Kindness, gentleness, and persuasion win where force fails." You're lovely, Faye, but that phone call seemed awfully windy. They smile about Aesop's economy of words before Don gallantly offers her his coat to protect her against the night air...
...and then, after they're settled into a cab, he grasps her hand and they kiss rather passionately. When she suggests that she'd like to come back to his place, however, he tells her that he's going to stick to the plan of taking her home, "because that's as far as I can go right now." Probably best not to mention how much farther he went in his last cab ride, but I am happy to see him treat Faye with the respect she deserves, not to mention it's nice to see at least one woman not get shit on this episode. Of course, he may just be thinking that he doesn't want to risk hurting someone whose dad could have his kneecaps broken as easily as blinking. Faye admits that his demure attitude isn't what she expected, but she doesn't seem to have a problem with it, instead settling back into making out with him. As consolation prizes go, that leaves little to be desired.
In the morning, Don wakes up in bed, stretched out and alone, and then in the pool, he ends up in an impromptu race with some younger dude, whom he beats out. And he doesn't even hack up a lung afterwards, which means he's really getting in shape!
At the party, kids are playing and adults are talking when Don appears, looking very well turned out and carrying a large stuffed elephant for Gene. Francine greets him politely but not enthusiastically, but Bobby makes up for it with a happy "Daddy!" while Sally opts for an uncertain wave. Henry asks Betty what Don's doing there, but Betty, having had some time to mull things over, tells him it's okay, and picks Gene up and brings him over to Don. Henry looks pleased at her newfound civility, not that he demonstrated much of it himself, and Betty smiles as she parrots Francine's line from earlier: "We have everything." When she looks back over at Don, though, who's happily holding Gene up in the air, she looks pensive, like, as Don suggested, she's wishing for what she once had. And now that he's cleaned himself up, can you blame her? See you week!
John Ramos is a writer and film producer living in Los Angeles. You can email him at couchbaron@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/couchbaron and https://twitter.com/eastfifthbliss.
Watch an interview with Trudy Campbell, herself, Alison Brie.
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