Blowing Smoke, Mad Men Season 4 Episode 12

The Return of Midge!! I was watching this episode with my little brother Jonny, and almost as soon as Don walked into Midge and her "just for the bread" husband's apartment, he said "This is some kind of set-up." Correctamundo! I didn't see it coming, but Jonny did and Don quickly figured it out too, thanks to clues from the Heroin Husband. Heroin!! Wow.

For a minute I thought we had seen the last of Pete's blue suits. He wore a black suit last week for a funeral, and in one of the first scenes of this episode, he and Don were sitting next to each other both wearing grey suits. Samesies!! Sadly, he was back to a blue suit the next time we saw him. Rats.

My favorite lines from this episode came from Sally Draper and Bert Cooper.

Sally: "She doesn't care what the truth is as long as I do what she says." Therapy with Dr. Edna has really helped Sally, and I'm happy that she's figuring out how to get along in this world. Too bad her mother, a grown woman, still hasn't figured that out.

I so wish Betty hadn't caught Glen and Sally in their secret but completely innocent meeting place. Sally truly was being a good girl and nothing bad was going on, but there's no doubt Betty will twist the situation around to turn something innocuous into something dirty. Just as Dr. Edna is able to talk Sally through what could have been a lifelong neurosis, Betty has to come along and heap another complex onto Sally's poor little mind.

Bert: "You there! Get my shoes!" This was just comical. I giggled for minutes in a row.

The most perplexing line of this episode was supplied by old #92, Glen Bishop. Reaching the end of his Coke, he asked Sally "Do you want the backwash?" Really? Who wants the backwash, especially when you don't even try to disguise it as something else?

Hands and Knees, Mad Men Season 4 Episode 10

OK, last night's Mad Men:

I don't think Joan had the abortion. Can't say for sure, but I have a feeling. We'll see.

Lane's "Chocolate Bunny"!

Lane's dad whacking him upside the head with his old man cane, then standing on Lane's hand until he promised to do as he was told, "sir". As an added bonus, Lane's dad was played by the same guy who was Mr. Reindeer in Wild at Heart! Weirdo!!

The relief I felt when those Beatles tickets finally came through. Whew! I was nervous about it the whole episode, picturing Sally totally going off the deep end if Don had to cancel those plans.

That smarmy Lee Garner Jr guy cancelling all future business between Lucky Strike and SCDP. He's been on thin ice with me ever since he got Sal fired, and this did not return him to my good graces. He's just a creep.

Don's identity scare!! This is the first time in a long time that I've seen Betty show some kindness towards Don, or towards anyone. Good for her. I'm interested to see how this whole scare plays out in the next couple episodes.

Pete Campbell, who I cannot stand -- he and his blue suits make me sick, taking the heat for "losing" North American Aviation (really having to let them go to protect Don). I'd say this is the first time in a long time that he has shown kindness towards anyone, but he'll just lord it over Don from now until the end of time so it hardly counts. Kind of like he helped that au pair neighbor replace a dress, but then he forced her into having sex with him as 'thanks'. He's his own brand of smarmy.

What is the future of SCDP without Lucky Strike and NAA?!

During one of the commercial breaks, I saw the above really cool Converse commercial that uses (to perfection) Hello Operator by the White Stripes. I'd be irritated that Jack White sold one of his songs, but this commercial was so cool I don't care in the least. I also loved the European/Australian Coke commercial from a few years ago that he literally specifically wrote a song for, because the song and the commercial are so fantastic. Jack White can do no wrong in my book.

Fast Forward Nine Months

Joan and Roger: I can't wait for Joan to give birth to a little white-haired baby holding a highball glass! Even though Joan is married and probably shouldn't be having dinner at a secluded geriatric diner with her former lover, I'm not judging her. I know right after I'm the victim of a mugging in a bad neighborhood, the only thing that calms me down is to walk about ten feet away, then frantically have sex standing up, pushed against a residential building that someone just walked into. It's comforting.

Megan the Receptionist: I just love her. She seems like such a sweet, nice young lady. I think I want her and Don to end up together. Did you know she is played by the same actress that had sex in the bathtub with Darryl from The Office in Hot Tub Time Machine?

Miss Blankenship: We hardly knew ye. I'm dying to get the full story about her relationship(s) with Bert Cooper (and Roger) back in the day!

Betty: She keeps getting worse. I wouldn't mind seeing her character killed off.

Sally: What a wreck this poor little girl has become. I feel bad for her but at the same time I feel like a firm backhand from Don would straighten her up a bit.

Last Night's Mad Men

Oh my gosh. Sally is going to have the most warped sense of sexuality thanks to Mother of the Year Betty. Mommie Dearest was so horrified to hear the news that her daughter got busted for masturbating ("in public") that she immediately slapped her, then later threatened to cut off her fingers if she dared lie about it.

Poor Sally. She's a sad casualty in the mess that is the fractured Draper family. From this awful experience, she'll quickly learn to keep things of a sexual nature secret, just like Dear Old Dad. Sally's first boyfriend is going to be Glen, the creep who used to be (maybe still is?) obsessed with Betty. That's weird right there.



Can't you just see Sally and Glen killing Henry and Betty then running away on a killing spree like Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate? Sally and Glen would make a swell Badlands couple. Nobody beats Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek though - they are both so young and beautiful in that movie that you don't ever want to stop looking at them.

Overheard at The Galleria / Moms

While walking into the Galleria recently, my little brother and I (we not only live and work together, we also shop and go out to eat together!) saw a seemingly happy family on their way to the baseball game. We overheard the mom say to her four kids, all dressed in freshly-purchased Cardinals t-shirts, "I don't want any of you to talk to me at the game while I'm enjoying a beverage and a hot dog." Nothing radiates the warmth of motherly love like warning your kids not to talk to you in public.

Since I'm not a parent, I try not to judge sub-par parenting in general, but I'll gladly criticize some terrible TV moms.

• Betty from Mad Men. Her biggest interaction with her kids is to sit at the table and smoke while they're eating, followed by telling them to either go watch TV or go to bed. What about the time her and Don were doing a day drunk (starting in the morning with very strong Bloody Marys mixed by their daughter, little SBD) and forgot to feed the kids? They were passed out on their bed in the early evening when Sally woke them up and reminded them that she and Bobby hadn't had dinner. Classy Bets, real classy.
• The mom from Weeds. Oh, poor me. My husband died and my kids and I live in fancy O.C. so my only option to support my family is to sell drugs. Girl, please.
• Jennifer "Everybody Calls Me Love" Hewitt is in what looks like a Weeds/Hung hybrid where she becomes a prostitute because her family is about to lose their house. Really? She can't get a job at the mall or a grocery store or something?

The best mom ever, in real life or on TV? My mom.

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.