Mad Men Season 4, Episode 5

Just to keep you updated with what's going on: I've seen episode 4 but not episode 3. This and the lack of write-ups has been due to some frustrating computer problems. I will recap the missing episodes before next week. Apologies for any inconvenience. So on to tonight's episode: love Don's new secretary. Faced with a Times reporter, Don deals with the most uncomfortable situation of answering for himself, something he thinks he's above. When in doubt, denigrate: I've never heard of him. Honda is introduced as a potential new client. Roger displays some wartime anti-Japanese sentiment, further cementing his dinosaur status. The others decide wisely but possibly unfeasibly (hopefully, for narrative purposes) to keep him out of the loop. Phoebe's back, relegated to the sexual reject role of babysitter. (Alternately, maybe she personally decided against repeating the patterns of her alcoholic Daddy.) Don is going on a date on one of his nights with the kids. My first thought was what a horrible father, but we all know I have a weak spot for Mr. D, and I realize that at this point the paradigm of single fatherhood has yet to be well established, and he's a bit moorless here And guess who the date's with? Betty Draper 2.0, aka that no-putting-out chick Roger and Jane set him up with. At least we know Don is taking it not too seriously: three dates in five months or something like that. Credit to Weiner & Co. for showing in just a few short lines what a disastrous marriage this would be. Interestingly, problems of trying to separate/integrate work and marriage rear their heads here, as they did in the Don/Betty marriage. . Meanwhile, Sally's gotten herself a short 'do and a rudimentary, somewhat confused notion of sex. In a great line, Phoebe tells Sally she (Phoebe) is in more trouble than Sally is. It points to the near future: Sally will have more freedom and choices than Phoebe's generation ever had. "Why the he'll would she do that?" Don responds to Sally's coiffure. I always felt a strong sense of simpatico between father and daughter; I expected at least an inkling of understanding here. Perhaps gender and generational gaps are at play, but this show always struck me as more nuanced than that. Betty expectedly acts like a total bitch when she finds out, and Don quite rightly and boldly calls her out of it. In typical Betty fashion she makes it all about her, though it quickly devolves into divorced parents bickering over respective parenting styles. Though we have sexually derided the Betty- Henry marriage (it's true I forgot about that sex in the garage scene, but then it struck me as largely forgettable; just because it's in a semi-exotic locale don't make it hot) he does seem to have a mellow, tempering effect on her It'll be interesting to see how far he can take this. The visit from the Honda folks provides an early look at Western-Asian relations. Joan once again proves her weight in gold by not sending them to Benihana. Of course Pete blows his advantage by blowing the delicate art of gifts and then Roger completely kamikazes the situation (pardon the pun) in a scene that demonstrates everything that continually disappoints me about him even though I love him. Yet his monologue shows us there is honor and dignity and feeling in his racism, one of the best "racists are people too" speeches I've ever seen on television. However Don, in a moment revealing the depth respect and honesty of their relationship, clearly at least somewhat mended after some tensions, delivers him the tough truth that Pete's right in this case Speculations on the Betty/Henry sex life and its future abound as we're treated to a coitus interruptus moment. In the episode's most wonderful scene, we're treated to Sally's tentative experiments with masturbation, aided, I believe, by the Prisoner. (Someone with experience of that show will have to speak to its sexual allure or lack thereof.) Kiernan Shipka is such a fantastically responsive and intuitive actress, and the scene is handled brilliantly; it feels beautiful, wondrous, and completely free of shame. She gets caught, Betty flips out and makes it all about her and public appearances; what will the neighbors think? Also the prevailing pre-60s attitude that these things are done privately but certainly not publicly. (Implied but not spoken is that boys do it but girls don't.) This scene reminded me of the one where Sally gets caught smooching the neighbor boy last season and Betty advises her to (in very Betty-like fashion) to erase the incident from her memory and start over, remembering a first kiss as a moment of lovely pearled net innocence, never to be captured (or perhaps even bested) again. Sally's response: "But it's already over with." My response was a resounding "Attagirl Sally, way to strike a blow against the mystification of virginity and for the claiming of sexual pleasure. (It was actually that moment that made me want to blog the show in the first place.) Anyway the two scenes together made me realize that a) cultural changes and shifts in mores start occurring way before the external cultural indications of them start occurring and b) beyond being just a product of her generation, Sally Draper is a helluva girl. The other thing that this whole affair made me think of was can you imagine how much harder it was to get off back then, in the days before Skinemax? No matter how sexy The Prisoner is, I just can't imagine getting off to a primetime TV show; I'd need something more explicit. You had to be much braver and sneakier to get that stuff, and again if you were a girl it was even harder. For me the onset of orgasm would have been delayed considerably, and I actually still think this is a problem impacting heterosexual relations. Sally's incident(s) apparently require a therapist. Betty tells Henry she's been to therapy but remains reticent about it; she's still unable to makeherself completely vulnerable before her husband. This speaks poorly to her ability to conduct a good marriage or (for those of us still keeping score) a healthy sex life. In a great little Bertram scene, we see him display his knowledge of the Byzantine intricacies of Asian politesse. Roger enters and agrees to swallow his pride and deal with the Honda people, all the while still managing to act like a turd. Don, with that sexy evil glint in his eye, suggests Honda might like some American pizazz. We also get our second Mad-Men-inspired ad, this time for Klondike Bars. Pokes a little fun at our dudes, which perhaps they deserve. The experience led me to wonder if a show about advertising leads to better ads during said show. I noticed my dad, a notorious and vigorous muter of commercials during TV shows, does so less often during this one. Don and Betty have a predictably acrimonious conversation about the Sally situation. Of interesting historical note : the term "masturbation" is used. Don, either highly attuned to nuanced or displaying a stubborn male literalism (or perhaps both) asks if Sally was doing it in front of a boy or girl. Don's evil plan: pretend they're doing a commercial to prod the agencies into making them too, thus breaking the rules and losing face. Me likey. God I love evil genius Don. For eye and brain candy purposes, we get to see evil genius efficient Joan in action, wearing that killa dress from Episode 1 no less. We see the guys from the other agencies come up with totL idiot cliche ideas, the kind of stuff Don hates. Fake commercial time. We see Peggy on a scooter which is quite a fun sexy little image. Mod Peggy; it's like a spinoff for a whole awesome new series. Joan, on the other hand, you have to picture as the Anna Magnani type. Pencil skirts and tight sweaters and alternately dancing the tarantella sensually and nobly suffering and enduring. I can't decide whether Don's drinking is becoming a thing or not. Don and Female Don Draper talk in the office kitchen; he opens up to her about how lost he feels as a single Dad. It's unclear if this conversation means anything significant to a woman who listens to people professionally. This could go somewhere interesting, but as much as I love (and let's be honest, lust after) is a match for her or even deserves her. In an intimate conversation, Betty seems to come close to skimming the surface of her Daddy issues. How much has she transferred them onto Henry? Betty meets Dr. Edna, the child psychiatrist. Again the embarrassment of it happening in public, again making it all about Betty: she's punishing me (that part actually could be true.) Edna, the sympatheic ear Betty truly needs, says that must be a terrible feeling. Dr. Edna is also astute enough to note that Betts should seek her own neurological help pronto, though this is of course summarily dismissed. There's a moment with Betty staring wistfully at a dollhouse in Dr. Edna's office which struck me as a little cliched and obvious for this show. Don, the wily fox, totally plays the Honda guys, pretending to bow out of the running due to the unlevel playing field he himself engineered. Another great scene between Roger and Joan. She's understanding but grants him no self-pity on his war record or feelings of ages. In a wonderfully underplayed moment, she shows her hand to him for perhaps the first time, explaining that deploying a willful optimism is a survival mechanism he heretofore had no clue that she needed. The result of Don's power play is that SCDP will have first crack at Honda's new line of cars, derided as basically motorbikes with windows. Lane jokes that the advantage is you can see your brains splattered across the screen, reminding me why I love him. Dr. Edna's waiting room. Carla's back, yay The closing title music is "I Enjoy Being A Girl," another brilliantly ironically inspired choice from this show. For me this was the strongest episode of the series so far for me, perhaps because personally the pieces all fit together beautifully lucidly.