MAD MEN RECAP: 17 MONTHS AND 1091 WORDS, I’M SORRY
Finally… the earworm that is the theme for what’s become a national institution. After 17 months, Mad Men is back.
There’s some sort of Civil Rights protest. Beyond the cool sets, amazing talent and pretty people is the era. American life in the sixties, every aspect of it , is a character in this show. Matthew Weiner is rich for a reason. A bunch of jerks in an office throw crudely fashioned water balloons on the protesters. Viewers are to understand the pubescent behavior is from a smaller, less attractive, less charming ad agency.
Sally wakes up in a sprawling mod apartment, wiping the sleep from her eyes just in time to see her new stepmother’s bare ass. I don’t know much about cinemetography, but it seems like even the lighting is a little different. We’ve moved into mod. It’s clear a notable amount of time has passed as baby Eugene isn’t a baby anymore. Don seems happy. I don’t like it. Weiner’s gonna Dick Whitman us around again. OK, I like it.
Maybe.
Campbell must have moved to the burbs because he’s on a commuter train complaining that his wife has let herself go since the baby was born. ”She never used to leave the house in a bathrobe.” They’re called housecoats and they’re fantastic, Campbell. I wish he was wearing one so we wouldn’t have to see him cross his legs like a lady.
Rogert. ****ing. Sterling ya’ll. He’s charming Campbell’s secretary. I believe they called her Claire, but I heard her name is Claire, but it might as well be Putty.
Roger. Sterling. (I need a moment.)
OK.
Speaking of Sterling, Joan is home with the baby. This is what Joan looks like as a harried new mother. She’s a little snippy with her mother who is there to help.
Megan is working at SCDP, and it looks like she’s actually doing some work. I don’t like her. I don’t like her. I don’t like her. She’s consulting Peggy about who to invite to Don’s birthday party and says he doesn’t like Crane.
What is there not to like about Crane?
Joan and her mother are talking about when and if Joan will return to work. Joan obviously wants to for reasons beyond financial. One of which must be to see the baby’s real father.
Pete arrives at an important lunch meeting to find Sterling already there and all of them a little drunk. Sterling was sweet-talking Claire to get a gander at Campbell’s calendar and pounce.
Peggy and the guy from Evening Shade are pitching a stupid idea which includes dancing beans. Then comes the first really great line from the potential client about beans looking like mangled flesh or something, “and not just to guys like me who saw things in Korea.” He wants to market the beans to sit- in enthusiasts with hotplates. Because when you’re having a sit-in you wanna fill it with people on a bean heavy diet.
Commercial break: They’re re-releasing Titanic. How many times do we have to sink that thing? Maybe if we use DiCaprio’s private jet as an anchor.
We’re at Don’s surprise party now. Megan has hired the first flamboyantly gay black party planner. Get it? Times are a-changing, but not until every other man in the room mumbles something about queens.
Peggy’s still with that self-righteous beat poet. When I dream about this later Jack Kerouac will show up and smack him on the nose with a copy of Natty Review. The next great line is from Bert Cooper discussing the war with Peggy’s boyfriend and a sailor, “I suppose this man here is coming home in a bag for nothing.”
Commercial break: Miller 64′s new ad campaign is trying to distract Guinness drinkers with Irish jig music as if they won’t notice their Guiness has been replaced with a Miller 64. Funnest fact ever: Guinness Draught only has 135 calories and doesn’t taste like it came from the toilet.
Oh shit (they can finally say shit on tv now), Megan’s gift is a song. In French. She’s dancing. Does anyone have any ones? I want to beat Megan to death with Peggy.
After the party Don isn’t happy. Megan is stunned. Megan’s an idiot. ”Don’t waste money on things like that… don’t embarrass me again.” Nag, nag, nag. ”I don’t need to be the center of attention.”
Joan’s mom shows her an ad in the paper that SCDP is an equal opportunity employer. It’s an inside joke directed at the agency who assaulted the protesters, but Joan and her mother think they’re replacing Joan.
Price is 31 flavors of creepy right now with the girlfriend of the lost wallet guy.
Joan changes out of her housecoat and drops in SCDP for a visit. She’s their typical pulled-together, poised Joan, but the truth is she’s really shaken up by that ad and wants to find out what’s up with her job. She eventually introduces herself to the 12-year-old working the desk. The 12-year-old says something self-deprecating to which Joan says as she glides past,
“I know a girl who had your job and ended up with everything.” Nice.
She’s finally greeted and everyone politely makes over the baby. Sterling comes in and greets the baby giving no outward hint to the ingorant that he knows he’s meeting his own son. The look on Joan’s face as she watches Sterling with their child says everything. (Joan’s husband should not come back from Vietnam and Roger’s wife, who already hates him, should leave. Voila. Viewers get their payoff. These two must get together before this is done.)
Joan and Price have a nice scene where she cries on his shoulder in private. No one from the office came to visit her. The confusion over the want ad is cleared up. Joan’s job is safe. She confides her loneliness. These characters have a nice, platonic chemistry. Of all the male characters to not be creepy with Joan.
Ugh, back to Megan. Don finds out she’d gone home early to pout. He gets there and she’s cleaning the apartment in her underwear, so Don will have to watch her and not get to touch her. She says all this out loud. She’s forgotten she’s married to Don Draper and is still a mortal woman unable to refuse him. I feel bad for rolling my eyes the last 3 years as Don seemed incapable of resisting every woman who wasn’t his wife. Now he seems to actually love his wife, and his wife is this chick. It’s gross.
“I want to beat Megan to death with Peggy.”
hahahahahahahahahaha!!!