Don Draper IS the Elephant in the Room

How hilarious is it that Don walked into Baby Gene's birthday party, where his presence was not expected and certainly not welcome, with a huge stuffed elephant in his arms? Did he do that on purpose in an attempt to bring some levity to the fact that he was the elephant in the room? Probably not, but I liked the imagery anyway. FYI, I don't care how old that kid gets, I'm always going to refer to him as Baby Gene.

How about what a jerk Henry Francis was when he called Don to come get the boxes marked "Draper" out of the garage? He took that opportunity to inform Don that he should stay away from his own son's birthday party. Henry would have more of a leg to stand on with this box issue if those boxes weren't in the garage of the house that Don owns! Also jerky was Henry ramming the boxes with his car, and the fact that he had the boxes out on the sidewalk when Don got there. Don couldn't have been any cooler when he drove straight to a dumpster and pitched the boxes without so much as a look inside.

I'm once again bursting with pride over how Don is growing as a person. He's seeing all the drinking that goes on at the office with new eyes, he's swimming to clear his head, he's making mature decisions in regards to women and his family and his own drinking. I just want him to be happy. Since he's a character on a television show and I am a real person, it's hard for me to reach out to him and give advice or offer support, but I would if I could. For now I'll cheer him and his small but steady personal victories on through the tv screen from my couch.

I wish Joan wouldn't have cattily snapped at Peggy for firing that turd Joey. While I realize that Joan's got her own stuff going on with her husband headed to Vietnam (just Basic Training for right now), she could have warmed up for a change and enjoyed a rare camaraderie with another female, especially since Peggy had just stood up for her. Her ice-cold, tough persona wore on me this episode.

Mad Men

Last night's Mad Men was wonderful. Here were some highlights for me:

• Peggy's hair looks amazing! Good riddance to those terrible butt-cut bangs.
• Sally has always been cute but is now super-pretty. I think she grew out of the lisp too.
• Don pays for sex?!? More on that in a moment.
• Don likes to get slapped during sex?!? Truly surprising.
• Don and Roger are friends again, or at least they seemed to be. That's good. Why Don was so angry with him in the first place was always kind of a mystery to me.
• When Don threw the squares from Jantzen out of his office, basically for being square

Let's jump right into Don Draper paying for sex. The last three seasons he's had women coming out of his ears and now that he's divorced and can have non-sneaking around, guilt-free sex with whomever he wants, he has sex with what looks to be his regular prostitute? And he wants her to slap him "harder" and "again"! That's just nuts. I'm intrigued.

Also intriguing was that Betty's new Old Man husband seems to have the same penchant for sneaking-around, illicit sex/relationships. He's married to Betty, it's official and everything, yet he didn't want to have sex in their bed but in the car in the garage. Quite frankly I don't know how she can stand to have his gross Dad Hands on her in any setting. It's also totally unacceptable that he and Betty still live in Don's house. That's outrageous.

While I'm thrilled that Betty redecorated the bedroom now that she's sharing it with a new husband, I miss her and Don's teal tufted headboard. I liked that.

I also liked that the new kid working with Peggy is the kid from that Jack and Bobby show that was on a few years ago for like four episodes that I and four other people watched. I like him.

I feel like a snob for using "whomever". I used it because (I think) it's correct, but it feels weird to me because I never say "whom" or "whomever" in real life.