Grid Effect

Sorry for the late post, I arrived at work an hour late and my work suffers as a result. From now on lets just assume that if the post is going up around 10-10:30, it indicates punctuality, if not, it means I either got drunk last night (rarely the case on weekdays) or discovered my snooze alarm stops working after six hits.

Just a quick programming recommendation before we get to last weeks recap, there is no new Mad Men tonight. I thought about waiting until next Thursday to write this, but we’ll have a Survivor recap then, and I can’t be bogged down with two recaps in one day. But, if you’re looking for alternatives tonight, as indicated before Survivor: China is premiering at 8pm ET. It remains the only series this website follows on CBS, and that is one more than on FOX or ABC, that means you know it’s good. Also, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is having back-to-back episodes again on FX tonight at 10pm ET. They will most certainly be reviewed tomorrow.

Now that all the hullabaloo is out of the way, we can get down to another classic Mad Men episode. This was probably the most Betty-centric episode we’ve seen as of late, and ironically the episode where Mathew Weiner’s The Sopranos influence was most evident. Really, despite living in modern day, contemporary America, Carmela Soprano always fancied herself a traditionalist. Sometimes in spite of her wishes, but generally that was just bullshit, she voluntarily adhered to the standard homemaker role that Betty is (forgive the pun) pigeonholed into. Betty, however, leaves no room for interpretation, she does not relish in her lifestyle but her options are limited, whereas Carmela chooses her domesticity (despite how much she might claim, or pretend, or lie to herself that there is something else she would rather be doing).

Obviously, between the similarities of the two female protagonists and the neighbors pigeons flying off from their confided pigeon-coop in Mad Men and Tony’s ducks abandoning him in the pilot of The Sopranos, one could probably have not even watched David Chases series and still have picked up on the similarities. Modeling for Betty is like the spec house for Carmela, only Betty is enabled to model by a job offer to her husband as opposed to Carmela being enabled by her husbands sins. The difference being, Don reluctantly supported Betty, while Tony attempted to sabotage any independent progress Carmela tried to make. He only agreed to the spec house after she started to question Adriana’s disappearance.

Not to say Don didn’t have any apprehension. When the neighbor threatened their kids with murdering their dog after Polly snagged one of the birds (in the scene that epitomized this shows budget), Don expressed a little dissent. But ultimately he seemed supportive, and later conveyed his primary concern wasn’t for his well being, but for that of his kids. So, at least if he was upset, it wasn’t self-serving. At least not entirely.

Now see, I was hoping to transition to something lighter, but such a thing doesn’t really exist on Mad Men. Outside of squabbles between Pete, and well, everybody, there is nothing easy going about Don’s life. As mentioned before, Don was offered a job by a supposedly larger firm, offering him accounts with noteworthy clients such as Pan-Am, and other perks along with golf clubs and memberships to the New York Athletic Club. The entire plot felt cheap and predictable, since there was never a chance that Don would leave Sterling-Cooper. At least not in this juncture of the series. But it did advance the notion that Don has aspirations beyond advertising, unlike so many of his counterparts. We are led to believe he turned down the offer because of the usage of his wife to attract him to their agency, which he categorized as, “not a big league move”. Really he looked seething over the whole ordeal, because he knew Betty was getting released from the Coca-Cola gig.

Even if he intended on staying, which all conventional wisdom suggests he did, he finagled his way into a a 150% salary increase. And in case you were wondering, $45,000 in 1960 comes out to $316,090.03 today after adjusting for inflation.

The entire incident with the larger company came to a head when Betty contrived some song and dance about wanting to focus on parenting so she quit the modeling under the guise of, “being scared”, and not liking “Manhattan by myself”. Don, being to sympathetic to call her out on her bullshit, and Betty, (presumably) knowing deep down that Don knows she is lying, silently agree to live on that lie and continue with the way things were. 1960, baby, remarkable how much changed in just a decade.

The other storyline, revolving around Pete and all of his insecurities, he managed to display one of his occasional flashes of brilliance with an innovative scheme for the Nixon campaign: coinciding it with ads for laxatives (nowadays a PR nightmare, can you imagine watching the Daily Show with something like this). Before coming up with the concept, when Peggy was being mocked behind her back for her weight gain amongst Pete and his friends, he participated in the jostling before walking off in a huff. After Charles and Roger congratulated him for his innovation (though immediately deflated by Don), he acts like such a prick its hard to find anything else redeeming about him, and you hate to see him experience any success. And that’s regardless of his demeanor being explained in “New Amsterdam”.

The scene with his secretary, Hildy, was just excruciating. He completely humiliated her to the cackling of his coworkers suggesting she, “lose the sour puss…I love watching you walk”. Then, fueled by ego and alcohol, he sucker-punched Ken after another off-color remark about Peggy. I don’t care what your impressions of this episode were, the non-visceral reaction from Don and Roger not even glancing at the scuffle had to salvage the episode for you.

Other notes-

-After the Bel-Jolie campaign went so well for Peggy, it seems like she is unconcerned about her appearance. While she should have every right to be, given the parlance of the times, she might want to listen to Joan. The confrontation between the two of them in the kitchen spoke in droves about their respective mindsets.

-It looks like Salvatore is back to the comic relief aspect of the series, at least in the short term. His line about being jealous of Jackie Kennedy was definitely the line of the night, especially on the heels “The Hobo Code”, when we saw how conflicted he is over his closeted sexuality. Poor bastard.

We’ll try to get to the promised Sopranos vs. Rescue Me post today, and the more I think about it, the more it seems like we should include Mad Men in this comparative essay.