It was entertaining to see everyone in their casual clothes . . . especially Pete in his tennis whites. And, the Monday morning pitch meeting set up was a set piece to behold. This is definitely part of the show’s allure. And it gave us insight into Roger, and why he’s getting reacquainted with a hooker he used to know . . . he loves the chase much more than when he has something . . . whether it’s a client or a woman.
Don’s starting to crack, and I don’t get why he keeps giving in to Bobbi Barrett, at least sexually. I’m not seeing the attraction. Her idea for a tv show starring Jimmy “being Jimmy” sounds perfect for our era, but I wonder if it will fly in the early 60s.
Overall, the episode was paced differently, almost like it was shot in three acts, as the title indicated. I liked the departure, and I’m intrigued by the development of Peggy’s family and the arrival of Colin Hanks as a new priest in their parrish. Seeing the vindictive nature of her sister in confession added another layer to this unusual family dynamic. I still wish that Peggy would at some point show one drop of affection for her son…but I realize I will be waiting a very long time (if not forever) to see that happen.
EJ
I really liked the episode structure this time out – spending three Sundays with the characters (with an occasional incursion into the week just to flesh out the storylines). On a work-centric show like this, we don’t often get to see what Don and company do with their weekends.
By the way, I’m not a big fan of kids on TV, but that Bobby Draper is adorable. This is the second time this season we saw Don open up unexpectedly. First with his doctor, now his son. Sure, he hasn’t dredged the depths of his soul, but he has shared actual facts about his childhood. His brother’s suicide shook him more than he realized – there’s nobody left who can share in his past, and only Pete really has any idea about Don’s early life. Obviously, Don’s not going to open up to him, so he has to parcel out nuggets of information. Otherwise, the entire “Dick Whitman” phase of his life is his and his alone.
What did your daddy like to eat?
…Ham.
I can not even tell you how much I love that exchange.
Duck is turning into an interesting character – he’s completely bulletproof. Could anybody else at Sterling-Cooper survive losing a million dollar account? I had the impression Don didn’t really think that highly of him, but he got the job due to not-being-Pete. It’s bad enough that he has Sterling’s ear, but the fact that nobody even chastised him for the way he handled American Airlines and losing an existing client – that scares me. I don’t know what’s going on his head.
Now, the new priest is giving me Sopranos flashbacks. Maybe it’s just the way I was traumatized by Father Phil, but I honestly can’t tell if there was anything inappropriate in the priest’s behavior. That threw me off, because Peggy and the priest made up a significant portion of the episode, and I had a hard time taking those scenes on their own without bringing all of that to it.
We’ve seen examples of it this season, but Betty really is not very nice to her son. Earlier on, she called her son a liar over something completely inconsequential, as well as making some disparaging remarks about “little boys”. Being the only person on Team Mad Men who is not a parent, I’m probably the least qualified to talk about this. However, I understand that kids can get frustrating, but Betty’s treatment of little Bobby is kind of crappy. The time-lapse nature of this week’s episode made it seem like an ongoing thing, rather than Betty having a tough day or two. I mean, Bobby didn’t really do anything that bad – poor kid just had a run of bad luck. Again, not a parent, but it seems to me that if something happened to your child that required a trip to the emergency room, your first reaction wouldn’t be to voice your exasperation over the inconvenience.
What Betty often focuses on is Bobby’s “lying”. She accuses him of lying quite a bit, sometimes without any real justification. Given that she’s not stupid, she has to have some notion of what her husband gets up to. She doesn’t know everything, but she knows that he lies to her as a matter of course. Since she can’t actually confront him, she’s passing it all along to poor little Bobby. Poor kid. He’s not even the one with the drinking problem.
What I’m stuck on is the significance of Easter. The events of Good Friday make sense – besides the symbolic death of the American Airlines account, with the presentation folder looking eerily like a funeral program, there’s also Peggy’s sister and her Judas-like betrayal, ratting out Peggy’s sins. I get that, but we don’t even see the Drapers on Easter Sunday. Who or what was resurrected? Unless Mad Men gave us a Passion Play without the final act. The calendar is always important on Mad Men, so Easter means something, but I can’t put my finger on what.
Don (Kowalewski, not Draper)
As a Catholic, if a TV show is going to portray my faith on TV, it had better get it right. As a parent, similarly, I like to see the treatment of said subject handled properly. And as a frequent user of ladies-of-the-night, I expect a show of this caliber to accurately portray that subject matter, as well. I’m a little disappointed …a “pro” has never kissed me.
Hey, it’s Tom Hanks’s kid. I want to thank Matt Weiner (creator) and the gang at Mad Men for not easily going the priest-likes-little-boys route and instead going the traditional consenting-adult-sexual-tension route. But I give this episodes writers credit for putting two young boys and a priest together in the initial shot, even if they were merely being punished for misbehaving in church by Father Orange County. Instead they went with consenting-adult Priest-lay-person sexual tension and yet another man falling for Peggy. Or was he? Seems like the fact that Peggy had a child out of wedlock, if Tom Hank’s kid had really wanted to stray, would’ve been ideal. Maybe Father Son-of-Forrest really is a good Priest and was actually, simply seeking her advice on presenting. Call me naive, but I think that’s all it was and because of the nature of Mad Men, we all jumped down the Peggy-and-Father-Mooch-a-Meal will get …it …on.
Two years in Manhattan has made Peggy smart, taken her innocence, and left her jaded. Is anyone on this show happy?
Now we know why Ken Cosgrove makes $300 a week …he has lots of “numbers” at his desk and the big boss, Roger Sterling, appreciates that. So, I guess Roger Sterling is happy. Probably the only guy on the show who knows exactly what he wants and doesn’t have to wrestle with a conscience.
Don Draper is fashionable even on a Sunday at work. Corduroy pants with a dress shirt under a navy blue cashmere sweater. Kapow! Classic, classic look. Draper looks good naturally. Pete Campbell? Not so much. My son had his 2-year pictures taken in a sweater exactly like the one Pete was wearing around the conference room table.
I’m betting many viewers don’t particularly like Don Draper. He cheats on his wife. He lives a lie (his name isn’t even really “Don Draper”). He’s a bit too hands-off as a parent, unless it comes to teaching his children how to pour a drink. He’s mean to Pete Campbell and lots of people. He physically abused a woman last week in one of TV’s most shocking moments you’ll ever see. And this week he violently breaks his son’s toy to show-up his wife, he shoves his wife, and he mercilessly scolds his son, Bobby, without any back and forth. Later, however, we realize Don doesn’t want to be the monster his father was, doesn’t want to be a bad husband, and wishes he could figure out how to be happy. It was heartbreaking to see Don’s son, Bobby, as the villain the entire episode even though he was nothing more than a scapegoat and a lightning rod for Don and Betty’s pent up anger and frustration towards each other. Finally at the end of the episode, Don and Betty directed their anger at each other, where it should have been all along. When Don confessed to Betty that he didn’t want to give his own son reason to fantasize about killing him, and when Don hugged his son tightly to end the episode, I remembered why I love Don Draper and I’m rooting for him to figure out this happiness problem.
Working in the ad industry, I appreciate the fact every character is an actor on a stage. There was a line last season delivered by Roger Sterling and he said, “I’m sure every person in here has the first 20-pages of a novel sitting in their desk drawer.” (He said something very close to that, at least). From the top Account Executive to the lowliest receptionist at any media related company, most everyone in advertising thinks they could be “Don Draper” …the idea man. We play in bands, try some stand-up comedy, write novels (or parts of novels), and maybe even keep blogs or write articles for websites (www.spunkybean.com). If you see a television commercial, hear a radio ad, or see a crazy billboard, somewhere there’s a guy who came up with that idea and he’s patting himself on the back, and everyone around him is publicly applauding him for his creativity. But these adoring fans all secretly loathe him, hope the idea fails, and each of them think they have a better idea. How Salvatore looks when Don Draper rips his drawings to shreds? That’s how the majority of people feel in the advertising world (a great thing to write with the realization my peers might read this, eh?). There’s always a sense of competition in this business.
And, again, Roger Sterling has it all figured out. Everyone at Sterling-Cooper is devastated (if not secretly happy Duck is to blame and they are off the hook) by the fact American Airlines fell through and ended up being nothing more than an exercise in futility, possibly only getting the opportunity to pitch in the first place because American Airlines wanted to shake-up and scare their original ad agency. Maybe nothing more than a ploy by AA to cut commissions. But Roger Sterling isn’t worried.
No regrets, fellas. We were in it. Tha’t the important thing. Don’t you love the chase? Sometimes it doesn’t work out (shrugs shoulders). Those are the stakes. But when it does work out? It’s like having that first cigarette. Head gets all dizzy. Your heart pounds. Knees go weak. Remember that? Old business is just old business.
-Roger Sterling
Hard to tell if Roger is referring to love-dating-marriage or advertising, really. Maybe it applies to both (Hi, Honey …smiley emoticon).
I have a pencil with a slogan printed on it I keep at my desk. It was given to me by my first boss. She’s the reason I stuck around this crazy advertising world, probably. It reads: “Sales is a game. Let’s play!” So true. It’s all a game. And the winner will be the guy who learns to play the game for fun.
