Mad Men – Bad news all around

This week’s episode of Mad Men was a very dark outing. With so many bad things happening to the characters, I decided to go with one of the happier images from the episodes as the picture for this post. With all the strife in their relationship early in the series, I love how great a couple Pete and Trudy have become. I think it’s even safe to say that they are the happiest couple on the show. There was a nice moment between them in this episode as they snuggled on the sofa, and it was one of the few bright moments.

Seriously, there was a lot of serious shit hitting the fan at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce this week. The firm itself took an enormous hit when Lucky Strike pulled their account due to a decision by its board. Frankly, I was surprised that the news didn’t kill Roger. It’s going to be interesting to see what Roger can do with his 30 day reprieve from Lee. We’ve seen him do a lot as a character over the years, but work hard has never been one of them. He has really been portrayed as a spoiled rich kid who got handed a plum gig by his daddy. I really don’t have any faith that he can bring in enough business to offset the loss of Lucky Strike.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Pete had to let a 4 million dollar account go because the feds were doing background checks on Don and his questionable past. I’m not exactly sure why, but I really, really love watching Don squirm and there was a lot of that going on in this episode. In fact, he had a fairly epic panic attack and was stressed enough to come clean about his secrets with Faye. She took the news extremely well and seemed a lot more concerned for Don than surprised over the new information. Ultimately, I was a disappointed in Don though. Not only did he force a lot of money out the door of the agency, but he also made Pete fall on the grenade for him. Draper certainly looked like a good old fashioned coward this week.

Elsewhere, we got a closer look into Lane’s private life as his father came for a visit. It looks like Betty has some competition for Mad Men parent of the year. Lane’s father certainly wasn’t supportive in the least of his son and his life choices. Nothing says “I think you’re a fuck up” like a cane to the head. The scene in Lane’s apartment was humiliating enough as is, I’m really glad that Toni had left before the abuse. I’m curious to see how Lane is going to handle this “getting his family in order.”

Then there was Roger and Joan. Every so often Mad Men seems to go for a cliched story line that just seems beneath the show. In the first season it was Peggy’s “didn’t-know-I-was-pregnant” pregnancy, which seemed more suitable to a soap opera than to an Emmy winning drama. The fallout from that event was so well written and acted though that I quickly forgave the writers. This week we found out that Joan was pregnant with Roger’s baby after their tryst in the alley last week. It was just … predictable. My standards are very high when it comes to this show because for four years, I’ve really been spoiled by the superior storytelling. This plot twist just seemed cliched. Hopefully, as with Peggy’s pregnancy, I will quickly be taking all this back because the show will surprise me with the ramifications.

In any case, there are only a few episodes left and this week’s certainly introduced enough conflict to keep the show going through the end of the season. Is the firm going to make it? What’s going to happen with Don and Faye? Is Lane on his way out? Is Joan really that okay with her abortion? I’m looking forward to the answers.

Clacked by Bob Degon
on Sep 27, 2010 @ 18:55 EST5EDT