This week on Mad Men, episode 404: Peggy is tragically straight despite Joyce’s best efforts, Pete makes bizarre faces, and Don refuses to link an ad for cold cream to marriage.
10:03: Today’s short delay courtesy of the massive thunderstorm as I was driving home. And now: Lucky Strike and cold cream.
10:04: Pete has taken a personal toll while maintaining his father-in-law’s account. No one cares.
10:05: There is a fire by Radio City? What is going on?
10:06: Don has a letter from California. Pete hates this office, and is getting WAY too much screen time. Now he and Henry are talking about brassieres. Also, the opera. Pete looks like he’s trying to blend into the lavender paint.
10:08: Peggy talks to a girl in the elevator about photography. And thus did this episode pass the Bechdel test.
10:09: And, a bar. Pete is trying to tell his father-in-law they are counseling his account. Instead, he finds out his wife has forgotten to tell him she’s pregnant. “I feel like my heart’s going to burst.” Then the father-in-law bets $1,000 that it’s a boy and $500 if it’s a girl, and talks about uterus removal.
Pete goes home. This has all the potential for some sort of horrible argument-based scene, but instead is sort of cute. With the possible exception of the realization that Trudie is still unaware of Pete’s illegitimate child with Peggy. Whatever.
10:14: Back at the office, cold cream market testing. Peggy is not watching because she is distracted by a ring? Which is why you should never get caught in lightening, you’ll come in three minutes late and not have any idea what’s going on. The discussion otherwise seems to foreshadow the future of the advertising industry.
Freddie: Can you imagine? Your financial future’s in the hands of a room filled with 22-year-old-girls.
Don: Not mine.
Don apparently hasn’t foreseen the rise of youth-driven consumerism.
10:21: Peggy, Don, and Peggy are all impressed with Faye, despite the fact she insisted they spell her name wrong.
And then:
Pete: Lane, I just found out I’m going to be a father.
Lane: Well, I suppose that should take the sting out of all this.
10:23: Back with Faye, all the girls are drinking coffee and crying. The entire room is a chain reaction of misery. Freddie assumes this is because they all only want to get married. To his credit, Don does not respond. Peggy goes after Alison, who left the room crying, and it turns out this is because she is upset with Don. Peggy says that honestly, she should get over it, and goes back in the observation room. Fay comes in, it turns out Peggy was not getting married after all, this is not surprising and has happened twice in four episodes.
10:31: And it’s Kenny! He would appreciate it for the future if Pete would not say shitty things about him behind his back. Kenny hates his agency, is getting married, Pete one ups him with getting a kid. Then they talk about being Don’s slaves.
10:34: Don asks for permission from his secretary to enter his own office. Allison says yes, and says that they made a mistake, and that she is moving on to work for a magazine. She asks him to write a reference for her. He says she should write whatever she likes and he’ll sign it. Then she throws a paper weight at him, says he is not a good person, and stalks out.
Don: I’m going to need a new secretary.
Joan: Would you be open to Allison returning in a couple of days?
Don: If that’s what she wants.
Joan: Really?
Don: No.
Then Peggy’s elevator friend invites her to a photo shoot. It starts at nine. Elevator girl will be there at ten. I badly want to read sexual tension into this, but it’s sort of a stretch. On the other hand, elevator girl is in a very dapper suit.
10:42: Pete would not like to see the maid’s room, but would like a cough drop account from Trudie’s father despite the fact they just dropped his other account. Then he calls Pete a SOB, echoing the sentiment in the hearts of millions.
10:44: Peggy goes to explore the fast-paced, smoky-room-filled art world. Then the elevator girl tries to eat her ear.
Peggy: I have a boyfriend.
Joyce: He doesn’t own your vagina.
Peggy: No, but he’s renting it.
10:45: Don learns to use a typewriter. Peggy is out, possibly womanizing. Oh, role reversal!
10:46: Peggy’s artistic merit is questioned by real artists, who are jerks. Then the power goes off and they all scream and run away, and Peggy kisses one in a closet before elevator girl, whose name is Joyce, finds her and they exit via fire escape.
10:53: Don has a new secretary, one that is probably old enough to be his mother, and who he is hopefully unlikely to sleep with. She used to maintain Cooper’s apartment.
10:55: Peggy talks nude art and Malcolm X with the design department of one. Then someone tells Peggy Trudie’s pregnant. Peggy congratulates Pete, he thinks it’s about his contract, really it’s about the kid. The entire scene is weird.
Then Peggy hits her head on her desk a few things, probably because it is more intellectually engaging than talking to him.
10:57: Despite their market research, Don would not like a campaign linking cold cream to marriage.
10:59: Peggy is also trying to disappear into her furniture, but it is not working, so she answers the phone and agrees to meet Joyce for lunch instead. She and Pete share a Look as she gets into the elevator, there is dramatic music. Clearly this is the take away message from this episode.
11:00: Someone in Don’s hallway wants to know about pears. Don has no pears. Cue existential crisis. Or, end credits.
NEXT: Betty doesn’t want to know about Don’s business, and would like him dead. Will Mad Men become the next Dexter? The next L Word? If history has shown us anything, it’s that the answer is, only for sweeps.