a2-m3 A Slice of Music Film TV Art

With only two episodes left, we admit to being on pins and needles during last night’s “The Quality of Mercy” after last week’s episode, where a too young Sally had to grow up too quickly. Mercy, of varying qualities, rained down on some in the MM world, while Don dealt out his form of mercy: hurt and humiliation.

Here’s this weeks Power Rankings:

Sally: We don’t try too hard to guess MM story lines. The cyber world is filled with erroneous theories and plots, but we guessed a future of sex, drugs, drinking and rock n’ roll for Sally, after her psyche-wounding encounter with a half dressed Don on top of a moaning Sylvia. We even threw out an idea about boarding school! Not being all that familiar with the world of upper crust resting places for girls from good families, we thought Sally’s sex, drugs and drinking education would come from the streets, like a normal child, not in the rooms of Miss Porter’s exclusive, expensive finishing school for girls who “hate their mothers.”

Betty had given Don a call to talk about Sally and just the mention of her named turned a drunken Don’s face ashen (again). What a relief for Don to find out that all Betty wanted was to tell him Sally didn’t want to visit him in NY, again, and she wanted to go away to boarding school, an expensive one, one that Jackie Kennedy attended, a Miss Porter’s. After Don corrected Betty on the subject Jackie/Jacqueline Kennedy/Onassis name change, he offered to pay and pretended not to know why Sally didn’t want to visit.

Betty and Sally’s drive to visit the school was tense, but we are used to their bickering and Betty did try and play nice to Sullen Sally. When asked if boys were the reason she wanted to go away, a quick thinking, Don-like, Sally, says, “I want to be a grown-up, but I know how important my education is.”

At Miss Porter’s, Sally is informed that her stay will include a peer review. Her peers are two bully brats, Mandy and Millicent, who like playing mind games with Sally. Sally was supposed to know to bring cigarettes and liquor for her potential classmates. Fortunately, for Sally, she was able to phone a fried, Glen Bishop, going to school near by. A taller, slimmer Glen arrives with booze, pot and budding hippie, Rolo, looking for fun. Glen pairs off with one of the M’s and when Rolo gets too handsy with Sally, she says no, then cries out to Glen for help. Glen has always protected Sally, even vandalizing the old Draper home in her defense. After Glen gives Rolo a beat down, we see a Satisfied Sally smile and it is beyond creepy with a hint of sinister. One of the M’s looks at her and the trouble she just caused, and has her pegged as one who loves drama, meaning she will fit right in. Plus, Sally knows how to make a Tom Collins. Peer Review Grade: A for Awful.

On the drive home, we felt a Mother and Daughter connection that has been missing. Betty teases Sally about whether she was accepted or not (she was) and she tells Sally to go ahead, have a cigarette in front of her, rather than behind her back. Betty also mentions that she is sure Don has given Sally a beer and has a shocked look on her face when Sally informs her that her father hasn’t given her anything.

Peggy/Ted: We don’t want to think about Peggy and Ted as one, but, they are. Megan and Don run into a very guilty P&T at the movie, Rosemary’s Baby. After tripping over their words, we find out that they are there doing “research” for an idea they have for the St. Joseph aspirin account. Megan wants to gossip with Don about P&T, but Don pretends like he doesn’t care.

Back at SC&C a silly, giggly P&T act out their pitch for Don, with Joan stepping in as an Jewish mother. Don’s not impressed but doesn’t say much until Joan informs him that the commercial will cost about $35,000 instead of the $15,000 that St. Joe approved.

Because P&T are living in a love bubble, they don’t see how sickening their very public/private laughs and inside jokes are. Ted’s secretary is trying to run interference and keep Peggy away from her married boss. Ginsberg realizes nothing he suggests for St. Joe will be considered because nothing can penetrate the love bubble. Except for Don, perhaps, who has already broken his promise about staying out of the the firm’s conflicting juice wars. Once again, he goes behind Ted’s back and informs St. Joe’s account man about the bloated budget. When a meeting is called, Don sits in and proceeds to make everyone uncomfortable. Ted’s pitch for the big budget commercial falls flat and it is up to Don to convince St. Joe why. Showing no mercy for P&T, he drops hints why this account and commercial are so important, without saying what everyone in the room thinks he might say. Don lies about whose idea the commercial was and gets the ok for a $25,000 budget. Don saves the account!

We squirmed, P&T squirmed and we are sure everyone felt beyond uncomfortable. Thank you Don. When Ted confronts Don with his nasty actions during the pitch, Don, yes, Don, had the nerve to tell Ted that he wasn’t thinking with his brain, that his love for Peggy has clouded his judgement. We would have laughed if we hadn’t been so upset. Unlike Don, who was awarded his first Clio award because of Peggy, Ted wants Peggy to be acknowledged for her work, plus he thinks he love her.

Peggy understands that Don will never forgive her for leaving the firm, but she has been punished enough. After all the crap he has put her through since her return, she can’t understand why Don would try and kill an account over his petty, hurt feelings. When Peggy called him a monster, we had to let out a cheer. We hoped those words hurt, Don, we want them to hurt.

Don: Don is still deep in the bottle. He is sleeping in the fetal position in Sally’s room (hopefully, not to feel close to her). Megan, once again, is trying to get him to curb his drinking, even telling him to stay home to “sleep it off.” While slipping on his morning eye-opener of OJ and vodka, Don watches the entire Nixon campaign commercial but he can’t even watch a minute of Megan on To Have and To Hold.

We wondered how long Don’s sincere handshake and promises to Ted to stop their war against each other and drop Sunkist would hold up. Not long. Harry calls from LA and said Sunkist can now be an $18 million account, with the television ads. At first, Don says no because of his promise to Ted to drop Sunkist. Dark, Dangerous Don is lurking and, like a wounded animal, his strike is deadly. He gets the partners, even Jim Cutler, to approve the Sunkist account and drop Ocean Spray. Don makes it seem like it was about the firm and money, not the plan of a twisted narcissist who has to be number one in everyone’s life, at home and at work.

All season we have seen the Detached Don or Drunk Don. His once miracle pitches have fallen flat. His slick sheen has turned dull. His wife, his beloved daughter, his colleagues are openly expressing their disappointment in their once Golden Boy. Don is drifting downward at an alarming rate. We thought he had hit bottom last week, but, Don can’t go down far enough. He is hurting, so everyone has to hurt. We don’t think he derives any pleasure from hurting Peggy and Ted and everyone else he touches. It seems as if he just can’t help himself. He doesn’t know how to act like a loving, giving human. Even helping Sylvia and Arnie’s son was about getting back into bed with Sylvia. For Don to even suggest anyone at the firm was not thinking with their brains, but their heart, is beyond insulting, coming from him.

We wouldn’t have objected if Ted would have clocked Don one, after the St. Joseph pitch. There was just enough truth in what he said about Ted and Peggy and Ted not being objective when it came to Peggy and the business, but he didn’t have to humiliate them and make everyone uncomfortable to prove his point. When Peggy called him the monster that he is, he looked shocked and hurt. All he could do is curl himself up in the fetal position (again) and look to his own black rock of a heart for comfort. Don, you are alone, do you really want to continue this way?

Pete/Bob: Soon-to-be-father, Ken Cosgrove has had it with the Chevy Children, after going hunting with them and almost losing an eye. There was little sympathy at the firm because everyone has a horror story about a high maintenance client. But, Pete, putting aside all their past differences, offers to take over the Chevy account, if Ken smooth the way for him, with the partners. Pete gets the gig (and we are sure he will take all that Chevy has to give), but he has to work with Bob, the partners insist.

Last week, Bob, sort of, kind of, declared a love or “admiration” for Pete, which Pete, slowly, but, firmly rejected. Although never trusting Bob nor his smarmy motives, we gave Bob the benefit of the doubt, that he may have seen something in Pete that the world did not.

Pete does think Bob is disgusting and Bob’s spurned love has turned into a bitter breakup. Bob trashes Pete, in Spanish, to Manolo. Pete calls Duck and is willing to pay him $1,000 fee to find Bob another job, on the downlow. After some digging, Duck discovers that Bob is not who he says he is!!! His whole resume is false and his blue blood breeding is really that of a mongrel from the back hills country. We aren’t sure he is really gay or willing to be gay for the right move forward. We will give Bob his full due because he made himself invaluable on the firm’s largest account.

After a fitful night of not sleeping, Pete comes up with a brilliant strategy and solution to his Bob problem. When he confronts Bob with the truth, Bob just wants 24 hours to disappear, but all Pete wants is the pleasure of seeing that phoney smile of Bob’s disappear. He tells Bob that he has been through this scenario before, working with a narcissistic, lying, sociopath and when he tried to expose the big fat liar and cheat, he failed, big time. Pete doesn’t understand how these people live with themselves, but he knows he is no match for their kind. A deal was struck: He and Bob will work on Chevy together and Bob will keep his physical distance from Pete and Manolo away from his mother. This is going to be fun.

Stray Thoughts:

* Ken, for a second we thought you were dead. We would have missed you. It was a real Dick Cheney moment.

* About next week’s finale, we have none. But, we do know that we will have much to think and write about.

Is it all really almost over? Mercy, mercy me!

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There are reasons why we don’t try to write our Mad Men recap on Sunday night, after the broadcast. We need time to decompress and deconstruct the drama that just unfolded. After last night’s “Favors,” penned by Matt Weiner and Semi Chellas, we were wondering if we would have the emotional strength to digest and write about what we had seen. After a fitful night of sleep, some tossing and turning and fevered dreams, as we tried to make all the hurt go away and solve the most complicated of father/daughter relationships, we think we are ready to write.

We are reminded that if you ask someone for a solid, be prepared to pay for that favor.

Here’s this weeks’ Power Rankings:

Don: After the trip to L.A., Don and Roger got the go ahead from Sunkist to create a campaign. Because the two busy partners don’t read the inner office memos, they don’t know that SC&P received the ok for the Ocean Spray account. This lack of caring caused Ted to pout because his brilliant and we imagine prolific missives aren’t being appreciated.

At home, Mitchell, Sylvia and Dr. Arnie’s son, is talking to Megan. He has been declared A1 and can be shipped off to Vietnam any minute. While in Paris, Mitchell became a part-time activist, freedom fighter and sent in his draft card and now his college status does not protect him from the draft. Canadian born Megan wants to help him, but Don tells her to stay out of the Rosen’s business.

With Sylvia at her wit’s end, it will be up to Hero Don to save the son of the woman he may actually love, with a deferment of some kind. He asks Pete to do him a solid if Pete still has connection with the state department. Pete, still hurting from not being a part of the firm’s boy’s club, declines to help Don, but, he does remind Don he is having dinner with Chevy/General Motors, which happen to be the largest defense contractors in the country.

The Chevy dinner was a disaster. When Desperate Don appears, the Don that Ted and everyone admires disappears. While trying to read the temperature of the Chevy executives, Don drops hints about young men who are looking for deferments and wonders how this is done. The Chevys let Don, Ted, Jim and Roger know that they think trying to get out of Vietnam is disgusting. The silence at the table was deafening and it takes a quick Ted to get the talks back on track.

The next day, a rightfully angry and righteous Ted blasts Don for his behavior at the Chevy dinner, reminding him that he could have cost them everything. Plus, Don was not supposed to have anything to do with Chevy until 1970. An earnest Don explains his friend’s son’s situation and Ted, understanding that Don doesn’t have many, if any, friends, recognizes that this was an important request. Ted promises Don a solid. He will talk to his flying buddy who just happens to be a brigadier general in the Air National Guard and if Mitchell writes a letter and cuts his hair, he will probably get into the Guard and avoid Vietnam. This solid comes with a promise, a promise that Don will stop waging war on Ted. Don now must take an active role in the company, read memos and let Ted have his juice, Ocean Spray. A heartfelt Don agrees to the terms of the favor.

The moment Don has been waiting for arrives when he is able to pick up the phone and tell Sylvia his National Guard plan. Of course, he pretended like he was calling for Arnie. Grateful Sylvia falls a part on the phone. She apologizes for not being good to Don because she did not want either of them to fall in love. But, Don is in love, or in something, and we know that this favor he is doing for Sylvia, not for Mitchell nor Dr. Arnie, will have to be repaid.

Sally: Last season, Sally was usually the smartest person in a room full of adolescent adults. She had to hear and see things (Roger/Marie/fellatio) no child should. As we have stated before, this year, we have seen more of the prickly, sullen, bratty preteen than smart Sally, who saved her brothers from Grandma Ida.

Sally and her friend, Julie are suppose to go to Manhattan on a field trip, which would require them to stay overnight in a hotel. When Betty finds out that they are the only girls going, she says no to the hotel, although she thinks that Sally staying with Don is no better.

We were afraid when Sally ran into Mitchell, in the apartment lobby. The too adult Julie had her eye on him and she wants Sally to feel the same. We were afraid because we did not want to see Sally involved with Mitchell on any personal level, especially one that involves a crush. That would have been too creepy.

During Sally and Julie’s overnight, they write down their girly thoughts about Mitchell. The next day, Sally finds out that Julie slipped Sally’s note under the Rosen’s door and she cons the apartment doorman into giving her the building’s keys. While looking to retrieve her letter, Sally sees Don on top of Sylvia receiving his thanks for his solid and runs away. (Is that a Double Solid Don?)

An ashen Don runs after her but she is gone. Don heads to a bar to drink in some courage before returning home to try to explain to Sally that whatever she thought she saw, she didn’t. He tried to convince her that he was just comforting Mrs. Rosen, who was upset about her son. Comforting her with his solid solid.

When Julie confessed to Sally about the letter in the cab, we had the sinking feeling that Sally was going to catch her father and Sylvia. We hoped we were wrong. Matt Weiner has been showing us the parallels between Sally and Don, even to the point of last week when Betty said that Henry thought Sally was just like Don. We know Damaged Don became that way because of Dick growing up in a whore house. We have seen Dick spying on his mother, having sex and now Sally sees her father having sex with someone other than Megan. Julie had hinted about Don and Megan and what went on in their bedroom, right down the hall, but no child wants to think about their parents and intimacy.

Now comes the questions about Don and Sally’s parallel lives. How will Sally rebel, because we know she will. Will she act out with sex and/or drugs? Run away, become a hippie, live in an bombed-out abandoned building in the Village? Will she use emotional blackmail to get everything she wants? With Henry’s political life in full swing, an out-of-control Sally won’t be in the Francis household for long.

Don, we don’t like you right now. You have wounded Sally’s psyche with your out-of-control selfishness and neediness. Don has to use all of his wiles to fix this or become an angel again. As strong as Sally is, we don’t know what will happen and are afraid because children, even smart children, aren’t equipped to handle such an adult secret. Complicated indeed, Don.

Pete/Bob Benson: Awhile back, Bob helped Pete find a private nurse, Manolo, for mother, Dot, who is suffering from dementia. Dot seems lucid and insists that she has had a sexual awakening because of Manolo. This, again, is something no child wants to hear from a parent, especially from a parent who has been so buttoned up and cold. When Pete tells his mother that he didn’t want her seeing Manolo, a pervert (because a young man and an older woman can’t find love together), she tells him that he doesn’t know love and never has. He was a little boy, and now he’s a sour little man. That sounds pretty lucid to me!

When Pete tell Bob that Manolo has to go because of a possible intimate relationship with his mother, Manolo breaks it to Pete that Manolo is gay. But, (and this is a big but) what would be so wrong if Manolo and Dot did feel something for one another. What is wrong with one human loving another, if that person is taking care of you, if he had your interest at heart? Then…Bob presses his knee against Pete’s. Pete looks down, but, in our opinion he did not pull his knee away fast enough. We have seen Pete angry and we have seen him get physical when he is angry, so we would expect Pete to deck him. He did express his disgust with Manolo and thus, Bob, but, his protest was weak.

We never quite knew what Bob’s game was. He seemed to be one huge suck-up, doing favors for any and everyone. We won’t address all the crazy theories about who Bob may be, that are floating around the www, but, we will freely admit that we did not see that Bob was in love with Pete. Maybe, all along, Bob has seen something in Pete that Trudy, Dot and all the rest of us couldn’t or can’t see. Pete and Bob, Bob and Pete. Our heads are still reeling at the possibilities.

Ted: Jealousy and envy can be motivators, but, there is always some damage associated with these negative emotions. Ted’s man crush on Don is so strong, even his wife sees it and accuses Ted of wanting to spend more time at the office than with his family. Ted is so hungry for any positive acknowledgement from Don that he becomes infantile and bratty when Don ignores him, his memos, and his contributions to the firm. By golly Ted wants the firm to handle Ocean Spray, his account, not Don’s Sunkist and he is going to hold his breath and kick his legs until Don gives in. I WANT MY JUICE!

Ted and Pete and Peggy are at dinner, celebrating Ocean Spray, and when Ted leaves the table, Pete tells Peggy that Ted is love with her. When Ted returns, we can see that he is jealous of the easy camaraderie between Pete and Peggy.

Even though Don promises to stop waging war on Ted and was genuinely moved by the Ted’s HUGE favor, we think that they will clash again. Don doesn’t do bromances. We do know that Ted needs to stop idolizing Don and feeling envy. As we see Ted come home to his wife and sons, a cozy, homey scene, we know that Don will never have that sort of familial peace.

Ted, be grateful for your home life and leave Peggy alone.

Stray Thoughts:

*Until she sells, Peggy will to learn how to live in a broken down, rat infested building and most of all, depend on herself to solve the problems that will arise. Her new cat will help with the rats, but who will help her with her heart. We were glad to say goodbye to Abe, but, Peggy, leave Ted alone. We like how Peggy was thrown by Dot talking about her and Pete’s baby, when Dot thought she was Trudy.

*We aren’t sure if Sylvia is Catholic, but, we are anxious to see what her guilt will drive her to do next, after being caught by Sally. This is a wild curve, but, maybe this revelation, this real truth of feeling and emotions that Don and Sylvia feel will bring them out of the servant’s closet into the open.

*This has to be the proverbial bottom for Don, he can’t go any lower. He can lie, cheat, con, deceive and ruin his life, but, he should not allowed to ruin Sally’s life.

All in all, we can feel our skin again and the raw pain we felt last night has lessen. But, we may need a Canadian Club ourselves, if next week’s episode is as intense as this weeks. Dragons, torture and the frozen creatures from beyond the wall have nothing on the emotional stew that is Don’s journey.

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