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!…at which point we cross-fade into Pauline, asleep on the couch the next morning, still in her nightgown with the TV on. Betty and Henry arrive, and Henry tries to wake Pauline up, but she won’t be stirred because she didn’t let the other half of that pill go to waste. Betty, with Gene in her arms (and looking significantly thinner to me), asks where Sally is and runs off to search the Rye Town Francis Spookhouse, which means she won’t be back for an hour, which is too bad since, as a camera pan right and down shows us, Sally is asleep under the couch, just like the surviving victim of the Chicago massacre, except with a protector over her. I’m going to be the one who needs a sleeping pill after this episode.
It’s also daytime once again in the Draper apartment, and Don’s awoken by the bedroom door opening. He focuses to see Megan with a tray of food and a glass of juice; pleased that he’s awake, she opens the curtains and asks how he’s feeling. Hilariously, he looks over the side of the bed for dead legs, but not seeing any, asks Megan where she was, as he was waiting for her. His tone pretty much suggests that he felt unsafe without her, which manages to be both endearing and, given what we saw, unsettling, but she of course does not know anything about fever dreams both adulterous and murderous, and as such tells him she was home, but he was a mess and she was worried. I’m surprised she didn’t call a doctor if he was in that bad shape, but that line is just so he can tell her, “You don’t have to worry about me,” which as double-meaning segues go is fairly clunky for this show. But the subject of the previous day is apparently still on Megan’s mind, as she smiles and tells him okay, and then she gets up, hopefully to get the tray, and Don watches her, still dazed from more than just the fever.
Joan emerges from the bedroom to find Greg already at the table in uniform, and Gail, who tells her she’s got breakfast. Joan, however, just wants coffee, adding that she barely slept, and without further preamble, she tells Greg that she’s been thinking, and she wants him to go. Gail politely retires to the kitchen so the two of them can talk, and Greg’s delighted, but Joan disabuses him of any notion she’s taking any more of his insecurity-fueled bullshit: “I want you to go, and never come back.” Greg tries to tell her they need him, but she’s worked it all out in her mind: “Well, then, it works out, because we don’t.” And that’s really the truth, isn’t it? Greg grabs her hand, not without roughness, and tells her he’s important there, he’s got twenty doctors over there who rely on him, and look to him for his skill and leadership, not realizing, of course, that he’s saying, almost without subtext, that he values and needs that approval and sense of importance more than he needs or feels any obligation to her and Kevin. But why should I talk when I can quote Joan: “I’m glad the Army makes you feel like a man. Because I’m sick of trying to do it.” Greg makes his last mistake in glowering that the Army makes him feel like a good man, but she tells him he isn’t — he never was, not even before they were married. “And you know what I’m talking about.” I can believe there were times she thought Greg loved her, and that she even convinced herself he was devoted to her — after all, as stated earlier, this episode is definitely showing how little you may know what a person is thinking, even a person you’re very close to. But whatever compromises and rationalizations she may have made for this relationship, I’m glad she got to get that out in the open, in the end. Him returning to Vietnam is in keeping with the episode theme, but it’s the callback to the rape that really resonates on that level. Joan yanks her hand away for good measure, and Greg angrily grabs some of his stuff before threatening that if he walks out that door, that’s it. And Joan has had some hellacious lines this conversation, but what she does here is even more powerful: She shrugs her shoulders, not without some sadness, and simply replies, “That’s it.” When Greg’s gone, Gail emerges, and it’s kind of inexpressibly dear that she’s still holding the coffee pot in her hand; she stands uncertainly, waiting for a signal from Joan, who looks at her and tells her simply that it’s over. Gail wordlessly sits, thinking about what this will mean for her, her daughter and her grandson, and it’s another moment that’s made ten times more powerful by the silence.
Peggy gets up to find Dawn already gone, but finds a note — set right on the purse for good guilty measure — thanking her for her hospitality and apologizing for putting her out. I want to throw up watching it, so I can only imagine how she feels…
…and then we cross-fade into a sad but lovely shot; Gail, curled up on the side of Joan’s bed, asleep, Kevin in the middle, and Joan, watching him with worry in her eyes. We switch to an overhead shot as she turns onto her back and stares up at the ceiling, and for one final gut-punch, “He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)” kicks up as we cut to credits. Assuming I’ve recovered by then, I’ll see you next week.