Grid Effect

Oh Mad Men and your double-entendre episode titles, will you ever cease to amaze me? Aside from that, not only is it a lifted title from a classic episode of television that is used as a plot source in the series, The Benefactor was also a God awful reality series from Marc Cuban. That is quite the company.

This episode, at least relative to most episodes of Mad Men, had a much sharper focus. The story revolved basically around Betty and Don, then we got maybe ten or fifteen minutes of a lighter story with Harry struggling to but successfully communicate with his wife over the salary discrepancy between him and Ken Cosgrove. This story seemed almost innocuous (though it served as a nice contrast to the Draper marriage) but they needed something to lighten the mood after “Flight 1” and the darker 3/4ths that was “The Benefactor”.

But for right now, we might be watching one of the more tragic marriages on television. The only way it could be worse is if Don started beating Betty, she in return cut his penis of while he was sleeping, and they were both mainlining heroin. Short of that, Don is only turned on by other women and Betty clearly wants to cheat but doesn’t feel allowed due to social stigma and an image she clings to that would be jeopardized if she stepped outside of her marriage.

The final scene, even for a series that leaves it up to the viewer to figure out virtually everything for themselves, was deeply ambiguous. Several people seem to be under the impression that her tearful breakdown in the car was an honest explanation, and there is definitely a reasonable argument to be made for that perspective. We tend think it had to do more with the above dissatisfaction and feeling of inability to do anything about it. A sort of, “Is this all I have to look forward to anymore?” realization that rested heavy on her shoulders.

For the past two episodes, Betty has been snippy, embittered, and the aggressive party in her marriage.
Presented with the opportunity to betray Don in the name of gratification she holds her ground and resists the horse guy’s advances. But why? Obviously, even going back to the laundry scene in “Indian Summer” last season, Betty has fantasized about other men and on some level found the equestrian partner appealing. I guess the question is, is her loyalty legitimate or for the sake of keeping up appearances?

Meanwhile Don is off making solicitous compromises and psuedo-threatening the wife of a cuckold comedian husband. Speaking of which, both of the Barrett’s were absolutely disgusting, and its a question of your sensibilities which one you felt was more repulsive. Personally, I’d go with Jimmy. I don’t think a line has ever summarized someones entire personality more so than Roger’s about him, “A person like that has to be capable of making a charming apology, otherwise he’d be dead.”

Utz, the source of many broken homes.

Anyway, back on track. You can see that Don is emotionally and spiritually torn with his infidelity, as it seems he and Betty made some sort of agreement in the 18 months off camera that they would remain together if he stayed faithful. But the look he gives Betty when she fixes his watch isn’t one out of love, but out of admiration. It was more along the lines of, “I can’t believe I just cheated on this woman who would have my watched monogrammed without me request, what a stand up gal!”, than “Man, I feel like a total creep for cheating on this woman who I love and does everything for me, allowing me to focus on the career that I have an unhealthy fixation with”.

More often than not, it seems to be the work that creates the infidelity. First with Rachel and now with Bobbie (It was never explained to us where he met Midge, because it clearly wasn’t at a bar they both frequent). But it seems like it has been awhile since he dipped his company pen in anything, so his succumbing to a woman he dislikes wasn’t all that surprising. At least not to us. His, “I don’t think I can do this” when Bobbie jumped him was both literal and figurative.

Then came Don’s own manipulation. and with it he seemed to get some of his swagger back. If you have somehow forgotten, the scene in question came at the Leutece dinner when Don followed Bobby into the hallway where the bathrooms are located, and basically threatened her and her husband with heavy sexual overtones, all while grabbing her hair with one hand, and her uh, nether regions with the other, after she tried to blackmail him for an apology to the Schillings. This scene seems to have caused a bit of controversy on the interwebs, and everyone has compared it to Tony Soprano like behavior and the infamous “rape” scene in Rescue Me from season three’s episode, “Sparks”.

But people do seem to be giving Mad Men more of a pass than they did with Rescue Me, probably because it was contextualized a lot better by Weiner and Co. And Mad Men is just a superior series, the majority of the audience doesn’t want a reason to dislike or disapprove of it. But I looked at it more as more of a threat to Jimmy’s career and to his and Bobbie’s relationship. In short, he grabbed her out of frustration and a feeling of emasculation, but in the end he is basically whoring himself out to keep things on an even keel with a valuable client.

And sure to Roger’s and Bobbie’s words, Jimmy managed to give a charming apology without even apologizing.

Other thoughts from “The Benefactor”:

-Harry’s scrambling for a promotion led to four brilliant scenes with Sal, Roger, his wife and an ad cohort at CBS. We might donate another post to this storyline alone because there is so much to be said about it that we are leaving unrecognized. But again, it was a nice contrast to the tone and tenor of the Draper marriage.

-Lois’ firing managed to be both warranted and unwarranted at the same time. On one hand, she is a little dense and Don is probably right when he says she should stick to the switchboard. On the other, shouldn’t have to explain why her boss is never in office. Especially when the older underling whose name we can never remember is passing out drunk on the stage set where all the trouble ensued.

-For all the anxiety induced by money and women amongst the guy’s at Sterling Cooper, Ken Cosgrove seems to be the source of a lot of it. With the published story, the typewriter, the paycheck and he seems to have more success with women than Harry, Paul or Pete. In short, we are looking forward to his side story this season.

-Part of the reason we disliked Jimmy and Bobbie so much was the incredible performances from the two actors, namely Patrick Fischler. Whom we recognize from Mulholland Dr.

-Pete and Peggy were noticeably absent from this episode. Pete was completely off camera and Peggy got one choice line about “The Benefactor” episode of The Defenders. As much as we liked this “The Benefactor” (Mad Men’s, installment, we’ve never watched The Defenders), an episode without Vincent Kartheiser is a lesser episode as a result.

-And yes, we got the analogy with Betty explaining how to handle a horse to horse guy, and Don with Bobbie, and the subtext of their marriage, but we didn’t find it that interesting. Something which we seem to be in the minority on.

We tried to cover everything. For such a narrow focus, this episode had a lot of material. Did we miss anything?