OK, I guess we’ll start with Ginsberg.
It was supposed to be one of those memorable moments on the show, when it dispenses with the usual chatter, backstabbing and sleeping around to have a character lose it. And Ginsberg was a logical candidate, because he always did seem a bit unhinged. And it was a followup to his freakout over the big new computer. Still, as Bed noted in his comment on my last episode recap, Mad Men is often all in the execution. And this one just felt too weird, even before the nipple gift. Ginsberg’s visit to Peggy’s apartment was pretty far out there, and the episode’s quick jumps from plot to plot didn’t help matters (although it did spare us more of that awkward apartment scene). Peggy’s reaction in the office was well-acted but otherwise, the whole Ginsberg-loses-it plot didn’t work for me because I just didn’t feel all that shaken because I didn’t really care all that much about Ginsberg. Instead, it played as weird comic relief.
The whole episode was deliberately choppy, pardon the pun, jumping from one plotline to the next. Betty starts talking politics at a little neighborhood get-together, and Henry – now an elected pol – slaps her down for it. Again, the trouble with Betty, whose character I found more interesting a few seasons ago back when a lot of people complained about her screen time, is that it’s too easy to chart the course of her plotline each episode. Sally is still acting the brat, but has no patience for her mother. Bobby, having survived into more than one season (the actor usually is replaced more often), is sick with dread over the fighting at home and Mom being unpleasant. That may be a reasonable source of stress for him. But for viewers, it’s old ground. Betty is a terrible mother.
I can’t decide what they are doing with Megan, who is either disinterested in Don or trying desperate ploys to keep him in her life – or eliminate possible threats, as she did with Stephanie. That was the least sexy threesome of all time, as Don’s mind is elsewhere after he gets some intel from Harry.
And so Don crashes the Philip Morris meeting to make the tobacco executives a pitch, trying to steal away an account from the colleagues who hate him. I’m not sure how realistic it is to think this gambit will work, but the episode’s conclusion makes it clear we’re supposed to think it will. Lou is stunned, Don is whistling for a cab, and the show’s universe appears to right itself – even if Don has to sell himself out to get back his rightful place in the agency. But at least it was interesting.
Ginsberg & the Nipples coming to a concert hall near you this summer!
I love Mad Men, but this was one of my least favorite episodes of the entire run, and it felt like a total waste of time in a year that only has seven episodes. Any script that has three Betty scenes, but no scenes with Roger or Joan should be ripped up and thrown away.
Mad Men has done some deliberately weird episodes before, but this one just didn’t work for me at all. Like bear88 I’m not sure what they’re doing with Meagan. Her character seems all over the place this season.
The only thing I liked was Cocky Don at the Philip Morris meeting. It’s good to see him try and get his mojo back. I
think I’ve seen enough of sad Don.
I think I speak for all of Free Kraut when I say I appreciate your reviews, bear88.
I think she’s going to leave him, and in doing so kill the positive momentum Don’s created. Or, based upon tonight’s episode, clear a path for Don to FK up a relationship with Peggy.
I am very much looking forward to bear88’s next recap, because tonight’s episode was one of the best ones of the whole series. I think you’re dead wrong about the women in Don’s life…the relationship with Megan is doomed, yes, but I see its end as having a liberating effect on Don. And there ain’t no Don-Peggy relationship happening other than the professional one; that dance was all empathy and zero romance.
Maybe. It wouldn’t be completely implausible for Megan to leave, allowing kick-ass Don to re-emerge as an account-closing lady-killer who fills the Chevy void with tobacco and fast food. I just think another option is for it to send him back on the bottle, and clear a path for an epic disaster of a fling with Peggy that leads to him being the falling man in the credits.
I think when it’s all said and done this series ends happily for Don, not sadly, and I feel this pretty strongly (if only there were some way to wager on it). But I can see how your take has an internal logic if you think Don has a harder fall yet to come.
Forgive me, but I’m just not seeing anywhere near enough discussion of the Walking Dead in these threads. I find that a real shame.
I don’t think zombie #2,431 is going to survive much longer.
Thanks for the spoiler tags, everyone. I had a family thing to do Sunday, and haven’t watched the episode yet.
Of course, by the time I do, you people will be over it.
I liked this episode, mostly because Don seems to me getting his mojo back. 1969 Mets, baby! His crash-and-pitch to the tobacco execs was great, and his interplay with Lou and Jim around the cabs after was even better.
The displacement by technology metaphor is heavy-handed of course, though as you say Ginsburg was the perfect character to embody it (that’s probably why they wrote him in to begin with). But I loved the homage to 2001 A Space Odyssey with the lip reading scene, right down to the letters I-B-M (H-A-L).
I want the Betty story line to end now please. But probably it won’t; I fear they may even have a Don-Betty rapprochement.
The traveling vagabond niece and the party at Megan’s house just screamed Manson Family at me. If the producers aren’t planning such a thing, they are at the very least deliberately trolling the internet sleuths on that point.