Mad Men - 'Lady Lazarus' Review

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 Full Spoilers ahead for Season 5, episode 8 of Mad Men

More on this week's episode just after I taste some of this Cool Whip.

This week on Mad Men we got to see Don and Pete go further and further down the roads they've made for themselves this season with Don continuing to be the caring, loving, understanding husband (does anyone actually prefer Don when he's like this?) as opposed to Pete who's basically becoming Don of seasons 1-3. The episode started like a few others this season with Pete taking the train to work while talking to Howard (we finally get his name in this episode) about life in general but as per usual their conversation drifted towards adultery and the different ways Howard cheats on his wife, Beth (another name given to us this episode). Right after watching this opening scene, I thought that we would see some more shady behavior from Pete and I was right as Pete continued to cheat on Trudy (I'm still not sure why anyone would, has he seen Trudy?) later on in the episode. 

The other main storyline of the episode involved Megan's resignation from the advertising business to continue to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. Before we got to this, we were treated to Megan receiving a mysterious phone call at work and then lying to both Don and Peggy in order to meet the director of some off-Broadway play she auditioned for. This gave us some good scenes between Peggy and Don, especially Peggy answering Don's phone call by yelling "Pizza House!" so she wouldn't have to lie to him. The extremely bad Asian accent she used made this one of the more random scenes of the episode but funny nonetheless. As this was going on we also met Howard's wife, Beth for the first time. She is waiting for Howard at the train station because she locked herself out of her car and right away you can tell that she is not happy with her marriage (much like Pete) and even knows about Howard's adulterous ways. 

It is then not that big of a surprise when Pete follows Beth into her house and proceeds to hook up with her. Pete's actions afterwards however were a bit surprising as he seemed to take the hook-up to mean something meaningful as opposed to Beth who saw it as a one-night stand. This difference in perspective continued to play a role in the episode as Pete continued to act as if he was in love with Beth (a woman he just met!). This led to reckless behavior such as calling her from work, making a fake story about insurance to see her again, giving her a hotel address where they should meet up, and kissing her with Howard in the other room. I'm not sure if Pete really is in love with Beth (highly unlikely) or if he's just going through a bad mid-life crisis but the end result can't end well. We even got a preview of it this week with Pete breaking the champagne glasses in the empty hotel room.

Megan's lying is finally called out by Peggy who as I've said before has the same effect on Megan as Don has on her. The scene in which Megan finally decides to tell Don that she's thinking of quitting the agency and pursuing acting full-time perfectly shows the difference between the two marriages Don has been in. With Betty and her modelling career, Don basically squashed it making her into a housewife but with Megan he takes the news extremely well and only offers words of support. I was hoping but not expecting for the old Draper to shine through with some condescending comment about acting but sadly it never came (However Stan made up for it with his response to the news. Stan, always good). 

The rest of the agency was working on two accounts this week with one being a cologne account that highlighted Don's lack of knowledge about popular culture, "when did music become so important?" and a Cool Whip account that fails miserably due to Megan's departure. Without Megan, Peggy is forced to act out the 'loving husband and wife' scene with Don for the Cool Whip executives and for some reason can't remember any of her lines even botching the key slogan "just taste it" and replacing it with "just try it". This gave Don the opportunity to berate Peggy publicly in front of Ken but as only Peggy (and Megan) can do, she stood up to Don even telling him to "shut up". Don's face after this exchange is priceless and it's moments like this that highlight Jon Hamm's incredible acting which seems to get better and better with each episode.

The end of the episode is scored by a Beatles song that Mad Men creator Matt Weiner reportedly spent 250,000 dollars to use. The montage of each character moving on with the new aspects in their lives as the Beatles sing on in the background was very effective and very Mad Men-like. I also love how the episode's last shot is Don decisively turning off the record and going to sleep once again showing the viewer how Don remains rooted in the past even with the world rapidly changing around him. Great episode which I thought would be difficult to do with the lack of Roger Sterling in this episode.

Random Thoughts: The one of few Roger scenes in the episode where he gives Pete the skis just so he could watch him struggle to carry them out of the office was great to watch. I could watch an hour of Roger making Pete's life miserable. Amazing. The shot of Beth drawing the heart to Pete in the window of the car seems a bit corny and yet in the context of the episode and with the Beatles in the background, it worked extremely well. Where's Lane Pryce? Ever since he knocked out Pete, Lane hasn't gotten one scene in any of the last 3 episodes. Someone needs to start a #freepryce campaign on Twitter. Even though Megan and Don's relationship continues to look "perfect", I think that Megan's departure is the beginning of the end for their marriage because the less Don sees of Megan, the more he will be tempted to stray from the straight and narrow path he's been following all season. I've been on (Joan and Lane somewhat hooking up) and off (I predicted Don would cheat on Megan early in the season) with my predictions this season so it'll be interesting to see how these story lines play out.

Episode from 2 weeks ago: 9.4/10 (Roger Sterling on LSD!!!)

Last week's Episode: 8.8/10

This week's Episode: 8.7/10

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