Grid Effect

Before we get started, I’d like to point out the Television Without Pity started recapping this series with this episode, but whoever “Couch Baron” is, he/she has assured us someone over there (probably the same person) will recap the previous five episodes as well.

Anyhow, this episode was done from the women’s perspective as much as the men’s. All three of Don’s love interests were featured: his wife, Rachel (who’s like a favorite character now) and Midge. Peggy may have discovered a calling, and Joan demonstrated why she carries herself with such a confident demeanor around the office. Still, I find it hard to sympathize with Joan, despite whatever she was reduced to as a result of having a vagina. She just seems entirely too catty and domineering, not only around the men, but also the women.

So how did Rachel become a favorite character? Well, the distance she kept from Don at their lunch (”I better not see this on my bill”) and the ensuing rehashing of it with her sister didn’t hurt. She just had this cool, calm demeanor about herself, and outside of his brother, she was the first person to fluster Don in any way. Don’s reasoning for inviting her to lunch were one, to hit on her (obviously); and two, to ask her questions about Israel because he needs insight into the best method of promoting cruise lines to the holy land. Because, you know, all Jewish Americans know Israel like the back of their hand. Her exit line after being invited to lunch under such ridiculous pretenses was fantastic to, and probably only attracted Don that much more to her: “I better not see this on my bill”. If you didn’t see the episode then you it probably just sounds like some throwaway line because it was so contextual, but it was damn hilarious for some reason.

We come to find out later in the conversation she has with her sister that by putting a chink in Don’s armor, he had put a chink in her’s, just a brilliant cat and mouse game. But she approaches it so cerebrally. Unlike say, Betty, who divulges way too much information to someone so distant. Even if it is her husband, she should know better. Shit, she should probably know better than Rachel and Midge for exactly that reason.

But one had to feel bad for her this episode. She is treated like a commodity in her own house, she at least subconsciously knows that her husband repeatedly cheats on her and even if she did, given the parlance of the times, there is little she could do about it. The diatribe she went on about wanting to whither away and disappear when her looks fade was also emblematic, as Don sits there, quiet as a stone and offers no reassurance.

As good as Rachel was in this episode, the highlight of it was the test study for the makeup line, as Joan happily rounded up all the female employees to try on multiple brands of lipstick while the male account managers looked on through one way glass. They cracked lame jokes, called Peggy “mouse ears” and gawked at Joan, as she seemed wise to their plan and modeled her ass for the audience, much to the enjoyment of everyone except Roger, whom we discovered was engaged in a tryst with the office matriarch.

But this laid the groundwork for some future intrigue, as Peggy stumbled into the position of writing copy by referring to a waste basket of tissues with lip-prints on them as a, “basket of kisses”. When the man inquires her further about what she did and didn’t like, she states, “I don’t want to be one out of a hundred colors in a box”. The man she was saying all of this to before being cut off by that wynch, Joan, seems to have had his hair blown back. When he goes to enlighten Don about his assistant who never looks her in the eye in order to avoid losing his sight to the earnestness, he refers to it as, “like watching a dog play the piano”. Now, something worth noting here, while this line is crude and demeaning, it’s also funny and relatively true, so it has this websites seal of approval.

Also, this whole development just speaks to how great the writing is. One, it paves the way for Pete to lose his shit when he finds out Peggy might surpass him on the food chain. And two, the dialogue is exceptionally insightful without being overwrought or clumsy. Everything everyone says is within their characterization, but nuanced and subtle.

Other notes:

-I’m not sure if Don is an anti-Semite, Jewish himself or, as Larry David’s enemy from the “Trick-or-Treat” episode might say, a “self-loathing Jew”. But the opening scene suggests he puts on a facade of the first, and is actually the third. I don’t know, it’s really hard to tell what he is remorseful about since we still only know so much about him. But judging by his reaction to the song at the end, it is definitely something. Maybe he would counter with Larry Davids line, “I may hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish”. Speaking of which…

-I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate Don’s disassociation with the rest of Midge’s lifestyle than to put them at an open-mic night. She likes fucking a wealthy, powerful ad executive, he likes fucking an attractive, loose brunette, beyond that they seemingly have nothing in common. Don’s butting-heads with the clown from Soho just accentuated that.

-Joan seemingly has Roger by the balls, but it appears no one, not even Don, knows about it. Whatever clout she may have is essentially worthless if its only behind closed doors. Still she seems pretty grounded about it. Or as much as Joan has ever seemed grounded about anything.

I am going to cut this short, but Thursdays have been my favorite TV day of the summer, and this is the only series I watch on Thursdays. So interpret that how you will. Looking forward to tonights episode.