First, Elise: thanks for keeping my non-contributing self on the blog until mid-season. I’ve been keeping close watch of the show’s developments, but every Sunday night presents an obstacle of Greek-level proportions to my Internet access.
This week’s episode let me down a bit, especially compared to last week’s stellar, tightly-written turn. Episode 5 contained that buoyant energy found in Season 3’s ‘heist’ finale. If it was exciting watching Don accept his award last night, a nervousness about his Canadian Club-fueled hubris tempered that excitement. Don is finally receiving the professional validation for which he has sacrificed so much—his Ossining home, Betty & the kids, his identity. He wakes up with a waitress named Doris and a stomach full of French fries. As Dr. Faye Miller said after rejecting his schoolboy advances (damn!): “Award or no award, you’re still Don Draper.”
Flashbacks: I love them. I know that the Slate crew excoriated Season 2 and 3’s issues with portraying Don’s rural, abuse-filled childhood. Sure, those scenes looked like they were filmed in a Cracker Barrel, but I am a sucker for anything that gives us contextual hints of Dick’s humanity before he became Don. The writers are paying a healthy amount of attention to Roger this season, letting him keep all of his spoiled, smart-ass (and best) lines but infusing him with a new sense of pathos. This development began in the last season, when he rejected his old flame’s advances in favor of the new, young wife on his arm (where’s she been?).
Anyway, Roger is an unexpected and exciting conduit for the past. I don’t know about whether Don conned Roger into a position at Sterling Cooper, Elise, but for some reason my gut says no. Don’s aw-shucks, eager, Mid-western demeanor just seemed too convincing, the Play-Doh portfolio mock-up too endearing. Then again, there was that smirk as the elevator doors closed…
My biggest problem with the episode is the secondary storyline. Who is this art director, and why does he resemble some Breakfast Club-Judd Nelson knock-off or Danny Zuko’s chump brother? Can he get any more stereotypically ‘bad-boy,’ with the leather jackets, the reading of Playboy (in front of a lady!), laying on a desk at work? What a joke! The writing staff fails yet again at presenting a believable, subtle character to represent counter-cultural currents. Back to whether this guy is Nelson or Zuko: what is he supposed to represent? Not quite a beatnik, definitely not a 1968 hippie, and it’s at least about five years years too late to be a greaser. Maybe that’s the point: this art director is simply trying at cool, edge, hip, etc., while it’s Peggy—the Catholic square—who calls his bluff. Attn: Matt Weiner: please bring back Smitty and his barber friend immediately.
Other thoughts/moments:
-Anyone notice Lane’s Mets pennant? I like him more with each appearance.
-Don is still treating Peggy as his “nervous poodle”
-Victory lap!
-What was up with the Don-Joan-Roger hand-holding triangle at the awards ceremony?
Getting a drink at 10 11 a.m.,
Dan
