PERCEPTION VS. REALITY
Mad Men Monday: What Shade Is Your Blue?
SO BEFORE I DIVE INTO THE "BIG THING," LET'S TACKLE THE DETAILS. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
Peggy and Paul are competing on damn near every account these days, mostly because, like your saucy Miz J, he can't pry himself away from the booze long enough to WRITE DOWN HIS GODDAMN IDEAS BEFORE HE FORGETS THEM.
Naturally, Peggy always solves everything on the fly, which makes Paul look, well, as unprepared as he actually is. So of course, because he's dipped in a very tangy douchebag sauce, he makes a mess of things. He rips into Peggy about how she should work on her stuff, and he on his.
But after a meeting with Don in which Paul has nothing and Peggy uses one of his uppity, Ivy League Philosophy 101 phrases to dig him out of the creative quagmire, he changes his tune.
Elsewhere, Sterling Cooper is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary, a bash that Bertram Cooper would prefer to avoid. After a phone call with the Brits in which Price is informed that they're planning on SELLING Sterling Cooper, Price is hard-pressed to make Cooper attend to keep up appearances. Eventually, he convinces Bertram to go by telling him that if he doesn't, people will think he's ill. Bertram shoots back: "Who told you I was vain?" Cooper acknowledges what most won't: everyone has a button, you just have to know where to find it and when to push it.
This rings especially true with Betty Draper, who is constantly either ignoring or is simply ignorant about Don's many affairs, particularly this recent one with Sally's teacher. After finding the key to Don's Magic Desk Drawer of Forbidden Secrets, Betty discovers the box containing bricks of cash…and Dick Whitman and the real Don Draper's lives. I'd be more interested in the bricks of cash, going on a shopping spree and buying six pairs of shoes, but when Betty comes across the real Don's divorce decree, the fires of hell itself are contained within her incredibly icy exterior.
Betty waits (and waits and waits some more) for Don to come home from "work," aka a romp with Mrs. Feelgood.
Oddly enough, there's no romping tonight. Her brother, an epileptic, is in another jam and needs money. Don offers to drive the kid to the new job his sister has set up for him, but lets him out of the car to pursue his own dreams -- and at such a great location, too: a dark, misty road that looks like the opening of any number of very well-known, very scary horror movies. Way to go, Draper/Whitman.
Don told Mrs. Feelgood (I know it's not her real name, but I DON'T CARE) that he'd call, so naturally he didn't, and naturally, she found him on the train on his way to work. "I don't care about your marriage," she says, which is perfect, because neither does Don. "Or your work or anything else, as long as you're with me." This is going to be a giant mess.
The episode wraps with the big Sterling Cooper bash, and with Don receiving accolades for his hard work, which on a given day entails fucking stewardesses, getting into drunk driving accidents, wooing and/or fingerbanging clients and cheating on his wife with his kid's teacher…and once in a while shitting all over one of Peggy's ideas.
Betty only knows the half, and she's positively steaming, so I can't WAIT for next week's episode.
I've stocked up on liquid company, and suggest you do the same.
Miz J, who works in advertising, is a regular contributor and resident expert on all things Mad Men at Crabby Golightly.
