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!In an Italian restaurant (checkered tablecloths and all!) Joan, Greg (in uniform), and Gail (holding Kevin) are sitting with Greg’s parents, and soon the New York Italian-accented waiter joins them and asks, “How we startin’?” Badly, if the way Greg’s mother is sucking a lemon is any indication. Joan orders a gin fizz, and Greg tells him everyone else will have wine, but he needs a second to decide. Another serviceman appears, and when his eyes meet Greg’s, they salute and exchange a greeting, it being clear from the other’s deference that Greg is the ranking officer. By the time the other soldier leaves, the waiter is practically looking at his watch, but when he asks if Greg would like him to come back, as he has a lot of tables, Greg’s like, why don’t you recommend a wine, and I’ll recommend that you show some respect, given that YOUR LITTLE BROTHER IS STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF AFGHANISTAN! (Well, not quite, but that’s the idea.) Either cowed or simply trying to rescue his tip, the waiter apologizes, and Mama Greg looks impressed in spite of herself. However, once the wine is ordered, she announces that what they’re doing is a “painful charade,” and everyone else is trying to come home. Joan tries to intervene on Greg’s behalf, but this quickly leads to the revelation that Greg wasn’t conscripted for this second year — he volunteered. Joan, faced with so many unpleasant revelations at once, decides to forego even discussing the fact that he told his parents but hid the truth from her, but is still aghast that he’s going back of his own accord. Greg, however, tells her they need him, and Joan doesn’t even bother lowering herself to point out that she needs him too. Which is good, because another waiter decides to interrupt the silence by playing “Santa Lucia” on an accordion, and I’ve never heard the death knell of a relationship coming from that particular instrument, but given their history with it, there’s no other conclusion to be drawn. Joan looks at Greg with unerring rage even as he lights her cigarette, and then Gail barks over the music, “You know, Joanie plays the accordion!” Gail and Ginzo should get together and practice reading a room.
The office lights are now out, and Peggy’s typing away with only a desk lamp to guide her when she hears a strange thump. It’s not really that kind of show, but violence has happened on it, and I admit that given the theme of the episode, I got creeped out when I first watched Peggy emerge from her office and ask if anyone was there. She treads gingerly down the hallway, and given that she’s got her purse and coat in hand I think it would be the better part of valor to get the hell out of there, but she reaches the source of the noise — Don’s office — and quickly opens the door. I’m guessing she knows Don’s home sick, because otherwise I’d think she’d be asking to see something she couldn’t unsee, but in this case, she gets a jolt of a different kind — it’s Dawn, who was just curling up to go to sleep on the couch. After the initial shrieks of fright, Peggy tells Dawn she should head home, but Dawn is clearly reluctant to do so, and eventually explains why — even if a cab would stop for an African-American person, it wouldn’t take her past 96th Street, and she’s afraid to take the subway, because there have been riots in Bed-Stuy and she’s afraid one could happen in Harlem as well. Peggy clearly never thought of that, but is certainly sympathetic, offering that Abe (she calls him “my boyfriend”) is in Chicago covering the riots before asking Dawn stay with her overnight. Knowing that this situation is going to force her to walk all manner of fine lines, Dawn’s a little hesitant, and tries to beg off by saying she’s stayed at the office before, but Peggy’s insistent, and I’m pretty sure Dawn’s grateful. I’m sure you know the show well enough by now to guess that won’t last.
Don’s lying in bed when a woman’s hand brushes his forehead — he thinks it’s Megan, but it’s actually Andrea. And I didn’t mention this in the recap, but it’s still day outside when it was clearly night in the show’s reality. Presumably, it’s so Don wouldn’t think it’s weird that Megan’s not home yet, but it does give away that something funky is going on. Anyway, Andrea tells him he left the back door unlocked, and obviously, if it were real, this would be some Fatal Attraction-level shit with her sneaking into Don’s house unconcerned that Megan might be there, and then she tells him she just wants it fast. Good idea, with him only having about twenty minutes to live and all. She asks if he remembers that night at Lincoln Center “when you took me back to the loading dock. Your wife was waiting inside.” And as much as this may be a fever dream, I’m sure we’re meant to know that that memory is real. Oh, Don. No wonder Bobbie Barrett heard stories about you. Anyway, memories of the loading dock are apparently too hot for Don’s defenses, and he kisses Andrea passionately and rolls on top of her.
From here, we get a close-up of a paper that lets us know the nurse killer eluded a police dragnet, and we see it’s in Sally’s hands — she’s been reading it under her covers with a flashlight and now looks genuinely freaked. Well, you may not like Pauline, but you can’t say she didn’t warn you.
Dawn, sitting on Peggy’s couch, is calling to her unseen host that her other family members are just her nineteen-year-old brother and mother “who says she’s thirty-nine.” Peggy appears with two beers and slurs, “Like Jack Benny,” and then sits down and asks what Dawn was saying about Don earlier, adding, “You can talk to me.” I swear, if Elisabeth Moss for some reason ever wants to have her least attractive scene handy, she should carry this one around with her. It’s like the makeup people wanted to make someone else look as bad as Don — hair is a mess, skin is grey and the makeup and camera angle make her face look like it something out of Guernica. Peggy, who looks like she might have the spins, goes on that she was Don’s secretary, and she wasn’t even looking to be a copywriter, but she was discovered. “Like Esther Blodgett.” Hee. Dawn chuckles at that, and then Peggy puts down the beer and admits she’s lit up pretty good, to which Dawn amusedly agrees, “Y’all drink a lot.” Peggy laughs, and the way she can’t keep her head still is such a great drunken touch by Elisabeth Moss, but surprisingly, she still remembers what happened a couple minutes ago, and asks Dawn again what she was going to say about Don. Dawn asks her not to tell him about her sleeping there, and Peggy says she won’t — they have to stick together. Echoing what she once told Abe, she goes on that she knows they’re not in the same situation, but she was the only one in her own position (i.e., a female copywriter) for a long time, and she knows it’s hard. Dawn appreciates her saying that, and then Peggy seriously asks if Dawn wants to be a copywriter. Dawn, however, says she likes her job, and Peggy muses that being a copywriter is tough, especially for a woman. She asks Dawn if she thinks she acts like a man, and Dawn, treading lightly as she has since Peggy stumbled into the office, guesses that she has to, a little. Peggy nods and says she tries, but she’s not sure she has it in her. Oh, Peggy. Have you really forgotten Bobbie Barrett’s words of advice? Peggy adds that she’s not sure if she even wants to, although picking up the beer again and getting even drunker is probably more like the dudes in the office than the women.