This was one episode where the two main plot strands felt totally separate, with not a whole lot tying them together either thematically or plot-wise. The one undercurrent that does seem to run throughout is the idea of blame being wrongfully assigned or projected – Roger dismisses a potential Japanese client on principal despite Pete’s protestation that “these are not the same people” he went to war with; Betty lashes out at Sally with what is really her unresolved (and borderline irrational) rage towards Don; Don’s anger at Phoebe after Sally cuts her own hair was less about her than it was about the earful he knew he’d get from Betty for leaving his children with her at all.
Speaking of Phoebe, she seems to have made a pretty swift transition from potential love interest to platonic babysitter, though it’s not clear whether she and Don made any less platonic stops along the way. Sally definitely has her suspicions, though, and I’m still undecided on how much of her behaviour here (both the haircut and the semi-public act of self love) comes out of a genuinely developing sexual awareness, and how much is purely down to wanting Don’s attention. The two things are sort of intertwined, in fact, as evidenced by her slightly sad, slightly creepy “You have short hair and Daddy likes it” to Phoebe.
Betty and Don played an interesting round of pass-the-buck with regard to the origins of Sally’s untimely sexual habits (how interesting is it that Betty had to euphemistically hint around it to Henry, but came right out and said “masturbating” to Don?), and both made completely valid points. Don’s “doing it” with various women clearly isn’t lost on Sally, but neither is the fact that Betty swapped one husband for another in the time it takes most people to even file for divorce, and we’ve heard from Sally herself that the fact they’re living in the same house is one of the hardest parts of the whole thing. She’s just being bombarded with a lot of confusing and quite contradictory messages at once, right around the age where she’s starting to become aware of this stuff in any case, and the introduction of a therapist to give her some stability is probably no bad thing.
That said, and however much Sally may benefit from therapy, good lord if Betty doesn’t need it about seven times as badly. Her whole line about “fast little girls” was just…wow. Wow. She has some seriously strange ideas, most of which were probably drilled in by her own nightmare of a mother. Slapping a contrite Sally was so hideously uncalled for, and the yelling up the stairs after her just made Betty seem, more than ever, like a child herself. Let’s hope Dr Edna, under the guise of “keeping up with Sally", can do more good with Betty than the unethical quack she saw in season one.
A quick aside: myself and a friend were agreeing earlier that we would pay good, good money to see a season of HBO’s In Treatment done in crossover with Mad Men. Dr Paul would have an absolute field day with this crew.
Meanwhile in the office, that pesky forward-thinking mind of Pete’s is at work again, and it’s nice to see this ongoing arc finally come to something of a head. Pete’s landed a meeting with Honda, which pleases everybody but Roger who refuses, point blank, to contemplate doing business with Pete’s “new yellow buddies.” It all goes sort of downhill from there for Roger – I often wonder how Slattery must feel to deliver these often great, yet hideously un-PC lines, but then I remember he’s already done blackface, and after that everything else must seem sort of tame by comparison. Anyway, so he’s obviously nursing one hell of a war grudge, which is understandable but also entirely selfish and shows a total lack of business sense – as he said to Don in last season’s finale, he inherited Sterling Cooper and never really had to learn any, and he certainly never had to learn how to put his own opinions aside for pragmatism's sake.
Everybody’s in agreement that the meeting will go ahead, but Cooper stresses the need to keep it on the down low from Roger. This I had some trouble with – would he honestly think it was possible for them to meet with Honda without Roger finding out? Thinking about it, that is a really sad indictment of Roger’s position within the company at this point. Anyway, he predictably crashes the meeting, says some really unfortunate things and seems to absolutely scupper SCDP's chances of landing the account.
This all leads up to a fantastic, electric confrontation between Don, Pete and Roger, in which the latter’s informed in no uncertain terms that this is bigger than him, that the world has moved on since the war, and he’s not going to be allowed to kill the account. Pete delivers a killer line where he essentially accuses Roger of “wrapping himself in the flag” as an excuse to kill the account because he wants the company to remain dependant on Lucky Strike, and therefore on him. My first instinct was that Pete was being unfair here, and I do think Roger’s psychological war wounds are genuine, but on reflection there’s probably a lot of truth in this. Roger’s repeated line “You weren’t there” does smack of something beyond military pride, there’s a definite fear of youth in him, and of Pete, “the boy wonder” who’s threatening his comfortable position of power. Don, in any case, thinks Pete’s right and tells Roger so, which probably had to hurt even more than the comment itself.
This scene, and the later one with Joan where she brilliantly undercuts his self-pity, are easily the most vulnerable Roger’s been since his first heart attack – his expression when he tells Don to “get [Pete] out of here” was so reminiscent of how he looked in the hospital scene back then, as though he was about to cry and vomit and possibly faint all at once. Sad, but also a sign that times are changing and Roger’s starting to feel the weight of being left behind. Meanwhile Don is nothing if not adaptable and able to move with the tides; hence his siding with Pete who is basically the embodiment of the bell tolling for Roger.
On a lighter note, there’s a really enjoyable, caper-esque air to the whole business of Don't plot to turn CGC's competitive edge against them, which recalls the raid of the old office in Shut The Door, Have A Seat – the highlight, clearly, being Peggy continuing her winning physical comedy streak this season as she rides a Honda round and round an empty studio. Don then turns Honda’s own rules back on them in the meeting, which wins him enough respect to guarantee that SCDP are first in line for their pending automobile account. Fun, clever, and a great moment of triumph for the struggling firm.
Other thoughts:
- I’m sure others have already picked up on this, but how is it possible that Secor are only now producing their first TV ads, when Pete and Harry hatched that plan in season one to buy up all Kennedy’s airtime and fill it with their laxative ads?
- “You don’t do those things in private, and you certainly don’t do them in public.” Oh Betty, how quickly you forget the manifold joys of the spin cycle.
- Miss Blankenship refusing to give the package to Pete because “it says Don on it” was funny, but also a powerful call back to the first season plot where Pete was wrongly given Don’s mail and used it to blackmail him. How insanely far they’ve come since then, to the point of actually being allies against Roger.
- Speaking of which - Christ on a cracker, that confrontation scene was great. I especially liked the physicality of the wide shot where Roger makes a lunge for Pete, who literally scuttles backwards about five metres (haha) as Don sweeps in, and it's all very fast but really precisely staged.
- Much as Betty seems to be going speedily off the rails, she has a point about Don’s neglect of the kids. Much though his date with Bethany (who I really, really could live without ever seeing again) was only a ruse to eye up the competition for the Honda account, leaving his children with a babysitter on one of the few nights he gets with them is pretty terrible.
- So we had Freddy back in week two, Ken last week, now Smitty – who’s next? I’m hoping for Sal. I’m expecting Kinsey. And his beard.
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