Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mystery Date
By Couch Baron | Season 5 | Episode 4 | Aired on 04.08.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Don -- who's severely under the weather -- and Megan run into Andrea, a freelance writer from the old firm, and it takes approximately .17 seconds for Megan to ascertain a onetime sexual relationship there. Megan is not happy to be the Diane Chambers to Don's Sam Malone, and tells him so in no uncertain terms. Later, with Don home sick, Andrea turns up at his apartment, and the panic with which he kicks her out shows he either really loves or is really scared of Megan, possibly both. However, when Andrea later sneaks back in and begs Don to have his way with her, he relents. I thought this might be a dream sequence, and when he ends up later strangling her, it becomes clear that it is a fever-induced hallucination, but that doesn't actually make it any less disturbing, especially given that...
...Joyce turns up with crime-scene photos from Chicago's student-nurse sex massacre, and everyone's apparent stomach for them causes "Ginso" to label them "sickos." One non-sicko who's still all over this news story is Sally; Betty and Henry are on the road for his work, so Sally is stuck at home with Pauline. Sally gets into reading about the murders and seems very frightened, although after Pauline I'm surprised she has the capacity to fear anything else. As if to back me up, Pauline ends up telling Sally about the crimes in a chillingly casual way before giving Sally half a sleeping pill so she won't be up all night. Betty, you've met your parenting match.
Greg is coming home, and Gail tries to prepare Joan for the fact that he may be different. When Greg arrives, he's thrilled to meet "his" son, and then Gail keeps considerately clearing out of the house so her daughter can get some, as mothers are wont to do. Any libido Joan may have, however, is killed by Greg's news -- he has to go back in ten days for another year, which was not part of the plan. Joan adapts to the change in plan admirably until she hears from Greg's mother over dinner that Greg actually volunteered to return, and as if that didn't make the dinner painfully uncomfortable enough, the news is followed by a member of the staff playing accordion music, which as we all remember brings back wonderful memories for this couple. In semi-private, Joan lays into Greg, who doesn't want to hear it. Gail, once again, has been through all of this and tries to get Joan to be strong. And she succeeds, but in a better way than she ever intended: Joan tells Greg to return to Vietnam and never come back to her, making it clear that she still remembers the rape in the process. If you wondered whether it was unseemly to cheer the end of this marriage, I can only tell you that you weren't alone.
Hey, guess what? Roger screws up! I know, you're shocked, but he forgets to get Ginso on a campaign for Mohawk to take advantage of some favorable developments with the mechanics' strike, so he does the only thing he knows how to do, which is to apply some cash to the problem. In this case, he pays Peggy to work up a campaign, although she takes his insult offer of ten bucks and ends up gouging him for the four hundred he has in his pocket, which is amazing and may teach him, as I've been suggesting, NOT TO CARRY SO MUCH CASH. Working late, Peggy discovers Dawn still around, and when she learns she's afraid to travel back to Harlem with everyone in such a rioting mood, she insists that Dawn stay over with her. As they bond, Peggy drunkenly confesses that she's not sure she really has what it takes really to succeed as a copywriter. A moment of hesitation in leaving her purse alone with Dawn, however, completely ruins the ebony and ivory-ness of the evening, and in the morning Peggy only finds a nice note instead of a new friend and looks as regretful as she does hung over.
Oh, in the end, Gail and Joan lie on the bed together, Kevin between them. It's not the family Joan imagined, but it's the one that's not leaving.
Want more? The full recap starts right below![Note: What Peggy fails to notice (and I don't think it's just because she's hammered) is that there is a distinct amount of white privilege that separates what it means to be a white woman and a black woman in the workplace -- especially in '66. Even bragging that her boyfriend is covering the riots in front of Dawn, just after she clearly demonstrated that she has to live in fear of them, didn't tip her off. Peggy is starting to get so good at playing the men's games, that she's even starting to be blind to the other social injustices of the world. Hopefully Joyce will knock some sense into her, if Dawn doesn't. -- Rachel.]
Pauline is reading with only the night’s ambient light to help her and chomping away on Betty’s stash of Bugles, and this is one of those product placements where the show has to pay them, right? Pauline is then startled when she turns and sees Sally in the doorway, giving a huge gasp before Sally apologizes, saying she couldn’t sleep. Pauline informs her she can’t sneak up on people like that, “especially in this house.” HA! Even Pauline knows about the Rye Town Francis Spookhouse. Pauline consents to have Sally sit with her for a bit, hastily putting the large knife she has by her side out of Sally’s reach before asking why she’s scared, and Sally admits to having read the paper before saying that she doesn’t really understand what happened. For all Pauline’s objections before, she gives Sally the sugar-free version now, telling her that the girls were getting ready for bed when there was a knock on the door, and when they answered, there was a handsome man (overruled, but we’ll let her talk) there, and perhaps one of the victims knew him, “but probably not, because he was probably just watching them from afar.” She goes on that the poor girls in their short uniforms probably stirred his desire, and when Sally asks what for, retorts, “What do you think?” Wow, do Bugles put her in a truth-telling mood, or what? Pursuant to that, she tells Sally the girls didn’t run because they were scared, and probably figured the man couldn’t rape nine of them. “They didn’t know it was going to be worse than that. They didn’t know what was in store for them.” You’ll be shocked to know that Sally is really scared now, and even though Pauline brandishes the knife again, calling it her “burglar alarm,” Sally wonders how she’s going to get to sleep. In response, Pauline reaches for a bottle of Seconol, bites one in half, and asks Sally if she knows how to take a pill. And as I said in the recaplet, Betty may not be Mother of the Year, but Pauline is certainly making her look better.
Gail has her hands full with Kevin, who’s crying because Mommy and “Daddy” are fighting. Joan locks herself in the bedroom, and in response, Greg tells Gail (and Kevin) to get out before pounding on the door and yelling that he’ll kick the thing down if Joan doesn’t open up. Joan complies, but only so she can practically shriek, “Who goes back?” She goes on that Greg doesn’t get to make a decision like that on his own, adding that he’s never understood that, but Greg isn’t hearing her, and tells her they’ve both got their orders before storming out to “meet the boys for a drink.” When he’s gone, Gail, who didn’t make it out of the apartment, continues her Wartime Wife Wisdom, telling Joan that he just needs to blow off steam. Joan is still seething, but Gail promises that Joan can get through another year, and she’ll help. She adds that Joan should lie down, and Joan slumps her shoulders before heading off to take her advice. I’d feel really bad if I didn’t know what’s coming; instead, I’m making my popcorn in advance.
Peggy brings out some bedclothes for Dawn and says she hopes she doesn’t mind the couch, explaining that since her roommate moved out, the second bedroom is just littered with Abe’s stuff. I wonder if that means they’re actually living together or just that Peggy’s doing well enough that she decided to maintain the place on her own. Either way, Dawn says it’s perfect, and Peggy says goodnight, but lingers for a moment when she sees that her purse is still lying on the table. Of course, she’s surely thinking about the four hundred bucks and probably would reflexively pause before leaving it there in the unattended company of anyone, but Dawn doesn’t know that, and the look on her face when the camera goes back to her is exquisitely pained. Man, that is just one of those silent moments this show does so well that is going to stick with me. Peggy tries to put a Band-Aid on a spurting wound by grabbing the empties on the table, but there’s nothing she can say that will undo that moment, so she wishes Dawn good night once again and withdraws, surely disbelieving she was capable of such behavior, which is fitting. And it’s a good thing she’s so drunk, otherwise she probably wouldn’t sleep a wink.
The darkness has caught up with Don’s apartment, and he lies in bed, shirtless, ashen and fearful, when a re-dressed Andrea returns and breezily says she’s got to go, but she’ll see him. With breathing so shallow he seems like his cold has morphed into early-onset emphysema, he tells her that this was a mistake, but she refuses to cede her power over him, telling him it’s a mistake he loves making, because he’s sick — at which point he springs to action out of nowhere, grabbing her around the throat and shoving her to the floor. She struggles and flails, and although the action is not so realistic that she turns blue or ruptures any blood vessels, it’s still extremely disturbing. And of course, if we’re aware this is a dream and as such conclude that it’s a representation of his inner conflicts, it makes sense that he would be afraid both of Andrea’s overt desire and of his inability to resist it, but the fact that he chooses such a violent way to thwart them (after having gone through with the sex to boot) is disquieting, especially when tied to the rest of the episode. When the deed is done, Don recoils and then kicks Andrea’s corpse under the bed before climbing back into it, but when he looks over the side, he can still see her heels sticking out, and I think this moment is supposed to be poignant but it’s ruined by my mind going immediately to the Wicked Witch of the East. Don, better recover before her sister shows up! Don passes out again…