Sunday, May 12, 2013

Three Up, Three Down: Mad Men, "Man With a Plan"

Three Up

1. Ted Chaough. We're mid-merger, and Ted gets to both show Pete Campbell up by giving up a seat in a meeting to a secretary and leads a very non-Don meeting about a new account. This leads to some friction with Don, but they smooth it over with some drinks and Don doing his thing. They maybe smooth things over too much as Ted passes out. He does get his back when he flies Don up to a meeting with Mohawk and is obviously more comfortable with traveling by single-engine plane. He also has a good chat with Gleason that helps to get Ted less concerned about understanding Don. It's not a big win, but it goes a long way to helping Ted find his way.

2. Joan Harris. She spends most of the episode feeling twinges and getting sick, and it turns out that she has an ovarian cyst. This makes her worry about what would happen to her son if she were to die. She also has a couple of nice Joan moments, one where she puts Ted's secretary in her place and the other when she saves the job of...

3. Bob Benson. Bob's smarminess apparently has a level of compassion, as he takes it upon himself to see Joan to the hospital to get checked out. He then drops by Joan's apartment the next day with a present for Kevin and to check in. Joan's mom likes what she sees, but Joan thinks he's too young. We'll see if Joan comes around to her mom's point of view.

Honorable Mention: Bud Campbell. As part of the subplot with Pete and Bud's mom, Bud gets to give Pete a ration for both not keeping tabs on their mom (who is clearly losing her mind and has pushed Bud's wife to the edge) and for not coming to him for SCDP's IPO underwriting. Bud gets to push mom on to Peter and put in first dibs on the IPO of the merged firm.


Three Down

1. Pete Campbell. Pete sees trouble at work with the merger, as not having a seat at the partners' meeting represents to him a looming lack of position. This isn't helped when Don and Ted go to take the meeting at Mohawk without him. They do that because of Pete's new personal problem - his mom. She shows up at the apartment thinking it belongs to Pete's dad (who is dead), and is clearly in the early stages of mental decline. He tries to have her stay with him at the apartment, but it's problematic, as her attempt to make tea leads to a fire that Pete has to respond to, which is how he misses the Mohawk meeting. Things just keep getting better for Pete.


2. Don Draper. He overhears a fight at the Rosen's (it sounds like Arnie is getting a job at the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota is mentioned), which is followed shortly by a call from Sylvia. They meet at a hotel, and then Don goes into creepy dominant mode, from ordering Sylvia to crawl around and find his shoes (which she does not do, exactly) to sending her a dress just so she can get undressed for him. But as much as Sylvia seems to want him, a dream leads her to break it off, which visibly upsets Don and leads to a certain despair at his domestic situation (a conversation with Megan fades to nothing, for example).

3. Sylvia Rosen. Marital troubles are compounded when she starts to play into Don's games, and it's pretty clear that she'd have stayed in that hotel room doing naked cartwheels if Don ordered it. Which is why it's surprising that a dream leads her to end the affair entirely. Not that there weren't signs of this before; it could just be that Sylvia's conscience needed time (and creepiness) to get her to that point. She may be unhappy with her husband, but she'll apparently take that over the disaster that would come from having to continue the facade (though I think Sylvia versus Megan would be a pretty epic fight).

Honorable Mention: Burt Peterson. Canned twice by Sterling Cooper, it was pretty entertaining to see both Roger getting so much pleasure at firing him twice and Burt getting all in a snit again (albeit less physical than the first one).

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