Three Up, Three Down: Mad Men, "Favors"

Three Up

1. Betty Francis. Betty wins the week without appearing after the third minute of the episode. She forbids Sally from staying in a hotel on a Model UN trip. This leads Sally and a friend to stay with Don and Megan, and the repercussions of that, as we'll see, are a potential long-term boon for Betty.

2. Peggy Olsen. We don't often see Peggy played for comedy, but this week suggests that it should happen more often. On the home front, Peggy has a rat in her apartment, and when it appears it's in a trap but alive she calls Rizzo for help, even offering sex for his services (she even hints at a three-way with Rizzo and the woman who's with him when she calls). She eventually gets a cat. At work, she's still navigating her relationship with Ted, but more importantly has a very uncomfortable conversation with Pete's mom, who mistakes her for Trudy and then lets out that she's having sex with her nurse. Peggy's reactions, and the scene where she tells Pete, are priceless. She even offers Pete kindness by saying she doesn't pity him, and that she does know him best (even if part of that is kind of date rapey). Anyway, some needed relief given some of the other stuff.

3. Mitchell Rosen. His act of protest - sending his draft card back to the government - sees him classified as 1A, which is a bad thing when you've also dropped out of school. He's pretty lucky that his mom's lover works with a guy who was taught to fly by a brigadier general in the Air National Guard. Mitchell was pretty dismissive of Don when the first met - looking like The Man as Don does - but he's at least big enough to thank Don and offer a handshake (even if Al had to prompt him).

Honorable Mention: Roger Sterling. Not much of Roger in the episode, but he can juggle three oranges like nobody's business. 

Three Down

1. Sally Draper. So the only thing worse than seeing your parents have sex is seeing one of your parents having sex with someone not their wife. That's what happens when Sally sneaks into the Rosen's apartment to get a note her friend slid under the door telling Mitchell that Sally likes him. She does not take this well, and winds up locking herself in her room. Don offers a weak explanation - that Sylvia needed consoling given Mitchell's stiuation - that Sally doesn't buy at all. Between this and seeing Megan's mom fellating Roger, Sally should just stay in the burbs.

2. Don Draper. While he does a great service for Mitchell - regardless of his motivations - the great service he's doing for Sylvia when they get caught by Sally negates pretty much everything. He's lost Sally, possibly for good.  His burying the hatchet with Ted - dumping Sunkist for Ted's promise to talk to his flight teacher about Mitchell getting an Air National Guard spot - is also tainted, as Don doesn't even know they were in competition. His ham-handed discussion of how to get out of Vietnam during a dinner with GM didn't help, either. He'd have been the clear loser of the night if he hadn't scarred Sally for life.

3. Pete Campbell. While his job continues to be a problem - he sees the Sunkist versus Ocean Spray problem as being another personal attack on his standing in the firm - it's family that hits him hard this episode, what with his mother having sex with her nurse and then, when confronted, saying that Pete was always sour and unlovable, even as a child. And to wrap things up, when he talks with Bob Benson about how the nurse he referred is taking advantage, Bob gives a monologue about how it can't be wrong when someone finds a true love, and then presses his knee against Pete's. Pete doesn't recoil in terror as you might expect, but it's another blow.

Honorable Mention: Dorothy Campbell. Not only is she going to lose her lover, her insistence that she can manage herself as she has carfare and her address on paper is undercut by the fact that she can't remember her handbag. And with her outburst about Peter, she's pretty much destined for one of New York's less savory nursing homes.