Dr Faye, once again rejecting an overly friendly and drunk Don, this week tells him “You’re confusing a lot of things at once right now”. It’s a great summary of him this episode – he confuses Sunday for Saturday and forgets to pick up his children, confuses drunken hubris with artistic inspiration and nearly scuppers the Life account as a result, and confuses the less-than-talented Danny’s idea with his own, forcing him to give the kid a job he probably doesn’t deserve. Don’s been slipping for a while now, but this just might be the beginning of his true descent. The only question is whether or not he’s going to bring the company down with him.
What’s really scary about this, drunken day-long blackout aside, is that Don seems to be losing the one thing that’s always been a constant in his life – his professionalism, and his ability to work no matter what else was going on. The Life cereal meeting was a painful mockery of the legendary Kodak pitch from season one, with Don slurring about nostalgia and stumbling through a series of increasingly desperate slogan ideas while Pete and Peggy looked on in embarrassment. It was pure luck that the clients were almost as hammered as Don, and so failed to notice how completely out of control he was. And he’s just such an unpleasant drunk here, the way he barks orders at Peggy and doesn’t even pretend to listen to what she’s saying. I’m still amazed she didn’t punch him in the face following the reveal that she’d been stuck in a hotel room with “that pig” all weekend and he didn’t even remember sending her there.
The idea of Don confusing things continues with the Peggy plotline, with that quote used in the “Previously on…” which suggests he’s hard on her because he sees her as an extension of himself rather than an individual. I still think he could afford to be a little easier on her and a little harder on himself, but whatever. It’s interesting that Don’s made a point of verbally congratulating Pete for good work recently (I can recall Vicks and Honda off-hand), but evidently has not done the same for Peggy despite the humble pie he ate to persuade her to come to SCDP in the first place.
Between Don’s antics and the singularly prickish new art director Stan, Peggy had a rough time of it this week. She’s angry that Don not only gave her no credit for her part in the Glo Coat campaign, but that she now doesn’t even get to attend the Clio awards where it’s nominated (understandable, although a part of me thinks she needs to manage her expectations). To add insult to injury, Joan gets to go to the awards because she’s hot and therefore great bait for potential clients, while Peggy’s stuck behind with Stan who does nothing but belittle and insult her, even outright telling her she should be ashamed of her body. I’ll say it again: PRICK. She does get to exact some fairly sweet revenge, calling his faux-liberal “I’d be a nudist if society allowed it” bluff by suggesting they work in the nude, thereby effortlessly tormenting him right into a cold shower. Nicely done, Miss Olson.
Elsewhere, we get our first flashback of the season with the story of how Don and Roger met. It’s roughly what we’ve heard before – Roger discovered Don at the fur company (there’s even a glimpse of Betty modelling on the shoot where she and Don met), recognised his talent and brought him in – but with the crucial new revelation that Roger never actually offered him the job. Rather, Don lied his way into Sterling Cooper and was only able to do so because Roger was too drunk to remember what he’d said. There’s an obvious parallel to Don being forced to give Danny a job because of his own drunken mistake, and while you could read this as a sign that Don’s “becoming” Roger, I don’t think the two are capable of being wholly similar. Don, although he’s now apparently telling random waitresses his real name, is defined by his inability to tell the truth about himself, while Roger’s so desperate to tell the story of his own past he’s writing a memoir. Chalk and cheese, even if they do both suffer occasional alcohol-related blackouts.
The demeaned, pitiable Roger we glimpsed last week continues here, too – Lane calls him “a child” to Pete, and it’s hard to argue. Though he downplayed it, there was something genuinely tragic in Roger refusing to give Don back his award until he admitted he couldn’t have done it without Roger. Like Peggy, he feels diminished and unappreciated, but she’s young and insecure and it’s understandable, whereas from him it’s just sort of pathetic. And just like last week, he unburdens himself to Joan who has absolutely zero tolerance for his self-pity parade, coolly telling him he’s “crossed the border from lubricated to morose.” Oh, Joan. Never change. She and Dr Faye could write a manual on how to classily turn down the advances of drunken philanderers. Maybe they could send Allison a copy?
The other major plot was Pete’s discovering that Lane’s offering Ken a job, which unsurprisingly brings all of his lingering resentment from last year back in full force. The thing is, he’s absolutely in the right – he is a partner, and Lane should have consulted him, especially since he knew only too well what the history was. But despite his mini-tantrum, Pete doesn’t regress or lose any of the maturity he’s gained this season. Instead, he pulls it together and asks Ken into the board room, where he lets him know in calm but very definite terms that he is now his superior and things are going to be different, which seems to come as a genuine shock to Ken.
I found myself really enjoying the Lane/Pete dynamic, which has been semi-developing for a while but really came into play here with Lane pointing out that pragmatism is something they share, and something that, say, Roger lacks. While there was a definite element of ego-stroking alongside the genuine sentiment (much like Don and Roger’s pitch for him to join SCDP originally), it is true that Pete’s been essentially pulling the accounts wagon by himself – excluding Palms, which Freddy dropped in his lap, has Roger actually brought in any accounts? There was also something quite unexpected and sweet about Lane’s “I’m quite fond of you”, which seems plausible after his comment to Don that Pete specifically had been friendly to him. Aw. You know, maybe Don and Roger should just get the hell out and leave the agency in Pete, Lane and Peggy’s more than capable hands. Campbell Olson Harris Pryce, anyone?
- So Roger IS writing a book, I’d been wondering since his comment in the premiere. And it is, from the sounds of it, quite dull. His mother made them eat vanilla ice cream because it didn’t stain, y’know.
- Admittedly “Judas Priest!” isn’t quite up there with last week’s “Christ on a cracker”, but I do think somebody should keep a collection of Pete’s incredibly square yet borderline blasphemous exclamations.
- I’m not sure what to make of the Don/Joan/Roger sandwich, nor the overly lingering kiss on the lips from Don. There’s an inexplicable part of me that’s always wanted to see what Don and Joan would be like together, and I sort of think they’d be amazing, but if anything would send Roger over the edge into that third heart attack…
- My favourite thing to come out of that scene, actually, was my flatmate’s comment following the Don-Roger-Joan hand holding under the table: “So, are Don and Pete holding hands too?”
- This week’s Big Return turned out to be Duck, who’s very much off the wagon and then some. Oh dear. I want to make some kind of booze-related “water off a duck’s back” pun, but it’s just not coming.
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