Full Spoilers ahead for Season 5, episode 3 of Mad Men (if you haven't seen it there's no reason to read this)
Don Draper is boring. There's no other way to put it. Through 3 episodes (last week's season premiere was a two-hour show so it counted for two episodes) of this season, the SCDP head ad-man has become what was once thought impossible, not that entertaining to watch. The Don that we've seen in 1966 hasn't come close to the womanizing, take everything without asking questions Don of the first 3 seasons or even the slightly pathetic drunk Don of last season but rather he is exactly what one would expect a 40-year old man working in an office building to be. Boring. This seems to stem from his marriage to Megan which so far has looked to be the best relationship Don has been in (not counting Anna Draper) and one that gives him a sense of peace in his life. It will be interesting to see where this goes this season but I still believe that we'll end up seeing the old Don sometime in the near future.
Well so much for my prediction that this season we'll be seeing the gradual phasing out of Betty and Henry Francis as this week's episode was basically geared around Betty, her weight gain (more on this later) and her possible serious health scare. Watching this episode on Sunday night had me all kinds of confused after seeing Betty for the first time. I flipped between "she's pregnant" to "she's fat" several times in the first five minutes before finally giving up and letting the show tell me. It turns out that in the last 6 months from the time we last saw her, Betty has been eating everything (seriously if we hadn't seen baby Eugene last week, I would be expecting the worse). The reason that the show writers had to introduce this storyline is because the actress who portrays Betty, January Jones, was actually pregnant over the course of filming the show's fifth season. And while the fat gain due to psychological reasons is a nice touch in trying to explain the real-life weight gain by Jones, I can't lie and say it wasn't weird watching Betty's second and third chins wobble as she walked/spoke.
Through this weight gain is where we get the main conflict of the episode as Betty goes to her doctor for some diet pills but rather hears some unexpected and startling news as the doctor finds a "lump" on her neck. In her panicked state she calls Don to tell him and their relationship seems to be way better than last season's as Don does his best to calm down and comfort Betty. By the end of the episode we find out that nothing is wrong with Betty and that in her words "she's just fat". Before this happens we get a psychic reading Betty's tea leaves and saying how many people depend on her, naturally Betty cries after hearing this and even has a weird dream where she dies (strange looking scene). The uncertainty of her health led to some interesting convos between Don and Megan and Don and Roger about the future if something happened to Betty. The strange thing is that Megan had a way better outlook on it than Roger who basically said that he's done with dealing with real life and death thoughts. This is even more strange considering that Roger has previously suffered a near fatal heart attack but also way less strange when you consider that Roger seemingly doesn't give a shit about anything happening in his life right now.
What was happening at SCDP this week also played a role in the episode as the company got back the Mohawk Airlines account thanks to Pete and Roger although if you asked Pete he'd say it was all him. Roger finally appeared to get back into the business side of things as he became the account man for Mohawk Airlines based on their demand for him. This led to Peggy being told to find a new copywriter for the account as the Mohawk people wanted a man for the job (Roger - "they want someone with a penis", Peggy - "I'll work on that"). Peggy ends up picking Michael Ginsberg, a talented copywriter with a strange personality that Peggy fears Don will hate. However, Michael impresses Don in the interview (mentioned how much he loved Don's "letter" to cigarette companies) and gets the job. I'm liking Michael as a character and with him being Jewish (Roger let us know in his funny racist way) and Don's new receptionist, Dawn (led to some more funny comments by Mr. Sterling) being African-American, the offices of SCDP appear to be moving with the times, something that is sure to provide more racially-charged comments (but funny) by Roger.
The last plot point of the episode involved Don and Harry staking out the backstage of a Rolling Stones concert in hopes that they would do a jingle for their Heinz bean commercial (somehow all true.). I think I would watch an hour-long show of the adventures of Don and Harry. The two are complete opposites and the obvious dislike that Don has for Harry, one that he has no problem with showing off makes the pair great to watch. While backstage the two of them meet two girls who they begin talking to and who offer them weed. I know I wasn't alone in hoping to see Don smoke with the girls then make some sort of slick comment before hooking up with one of them (see Seasons 1-3). Sadly though the Donald Draper of 1966 continued with his boring ways by just smoking his cigarettes and questioning the girl (he did give her his business card so there's still hope in seeing womanizing Draper once more). Not surprisingly the two of them fail to even meet the Rolling Stones as Harry messes up (he talks to another band thinking they're the Stones). The episode ends with Pete undermining Roger in front of the entire SCDP staff by making it seem like Roger is working for him and not as partners. This Pete-Roger duel will probably the focal point of more episodes to come and will be interesting to watch.
Random thoughts: The scene with Don and Harry in the car after the concert was hilarious with Harry clearly affected by "munchies" and not wanting to leave Don's car. Have we ever seen Harry's family? I can't remember. No Cooper, no Ken and very little Lane this episode, the show probably didn't feel like paying them. What was up with the weird interaction between Ginsberg and his dad at the end of the episode? I'm predicting that Don meets up with the girl from the concert and the happy Megan relationship begins to crumble. I'm also sticking with my Betty and Henry will be phased out prediction just because. Overall I thought it was a good episode but weaker than last week's because I never really enjoyed Betty as a character and episodes focused on her are usually less interesting.
Rating : 8.2/10
Luka Milanovic
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