Three Up, Three Down: Mad Men, "The Doorway"

So if you're someone who never quite associated depression with holidays, this episode probably took care of that. Glad it's April, honestly. Anyway, back to determining what three characters had the best episode and which three the worst.

Three Up

3. Megan Draper. Things are working out for Megan. Since we've last seen her she's landed a role on a soap opera, and she enjoys the hell out of taking a working vacation to Hawaii with Don. She continues to be a breath of youthful fresh air for Don and their neighbors (she hosts a New Year's Even fondue party), but there's trouble lurking that she doesn't know about, which puts her current state of contentment at risk.

2. Betty Francis. Betty begins to break away from the path she was put before matriculating at Bryn Mawr, but in perhaps the most Betty way possible. A friend of Sally's who is supposedly going to Julliard admits to Betty that she was rejected, and plans to move in with squatters in the East Village. Both the friend and the squatters have some harsh words for Betty and how she's lived her life based on others, and in the end this strikes a chord, and Betty stops looking for Sally's friend. She also decides to let her hair go to its natural brunette color, a small but significant step in claiming her own life (I'm wondering what's next: abandoning the battle of the bulge or a blow out with her mother in law; I'm hoping for the latter).

I was toying with giving Betty the top spot, but I don't think you can win if you're taking life lessons from 15 year olds. She also had this scene where was talking to Henry about Sally's friend and gave him permission to sleep with her (she actually says rape at one point), a little uncomfortable.

1 Peggy Olson. Peggy finally gets the validation for her work she never got from Don when an ad campaign for headphones gets caught up in news from Vietnam ("Lend Me Your Ears" isn't a great tag line when there's news that GIs are taking ears as trophies from dead enemy troops). She has her Don moment when Abe is using the headphones during a dinner visit, reminder her of outtake footage from the TV ad they shot for the Super Bowl.

We do get to see that she's still Don's protege in some cases - she's very rough on copywriters and has most of the team in the office on New Year's Eve, when she already has a solution in hand. Perhaps these will smooth down as she gets more independent.

Honorable mention: facial hair. Pete has grown out his sideburns a bit as part of his ongoing campaign to distract people from noticing he's going bald. Harry has even longer sideburns as part of his ongoing campaign to be as douchey as possible. Roger seems to be growing a bit of a pompadour, Stan has a beard like Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover, Abe looks like Paul Rudd in Anchorman, and even Ginsberg gets in on the act. 

Three Down

3. Bob Benson. Benson is a relatively new accounts guy at SCDP, and he's very aggressive about trying to make contact with the higher-ups. He "runs into" Don on the elevator and gives him coffee. He sends food to the memorial to Roger's mom. He hangs around in the outer areas of the office trying to cadge time with others. On that last trick Ken sends Bob back to his office, and with no love lost. Bob's clearly trying to move up quickly, and while his moves here generally backfire, it's only a matter of time before he figures out how to play the game. 


2. Don Draper. Don's trip to Hawaii, already a business event, takes on an uncomfortable personal dimension when Don meets a drunken GI at a bar and, after some discussion about being veterans, winds up giving away the bride when the GI gets married the following morning. The GI bears a passing resemblance to Adam, and Don spends the rest of the episode trying to forget the occasion, even throwing away the GI's lighter, which he apparently swapped for his own. 

The stink of death more or less follows Don throughout the episode, from the near-death of the doorman at Don's building (pre-Hawaii, seen in flashback) to the memorial to Roger's mom (at which Don shows up drunk and throws up), to the ad campaign for the Sheraton Hawaiian Village that reminds one of the hotel execs of suicide (most of the SCDP don't see this connection, except for Stan, who thought it was cool). 

And while we never do learn if Don took that woman up on her offer at the end of last season, we do learn that he's reverted back to form with the wife of a neighbor, the cardiologist who saved the life of the doorman (and who appears to be as close to a non-work friend as Don has). He does have the self-awareness to realize their affair needs to end, if nothing else.

1. Roger Sterling. He's apparently traded in LSD for therapy, as we get a number of scenes where Roger is trying to work out his issues, which mostly center around his lack of purpose and a fear of death. It doesn't help, then, that his mother dies, and at the memorial he starts yelling at Mona's new husband. So throw into his other issues new (or newly articulated) feelings that he's let every woman in his life down. He does make partial amends in agreeing to invest in a trucking company his son in law is starting.


Roger doesn't hit the wall until he learns his shoeshine man has died, and he's inherited his shoebox as he's been the only person to call to ask about him. Roger breaks down while going through the box, probably realizing that he's shown more interest in a shoeshine guy than his family.

Honorable Mention: Sally and Bobby Draper. Sally spends pretty much the entire episode in some sort of teenaged snit aimed at Betty, while Bobby goes from having an obvious crush on Sally's friend to hating Betty's new dark hair. I expect Sally will continue acting like a teenager, but I can't begin to predict what Bobby's deal will be going forward.