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

Three Up

1. Trudy Campbell.  Her bookend appearances run the gamut of the Campbell experience. It starts with Trudy flirtatiously fending off some of the neighbors (while their wives are just flirtatious with Pete, who can score them tickets to Hair). One of the wives shows up at Pete's Manhattan apartment and sees a little too much of a future with Pete, and her husband finds out. She tells Trudy, who has a short but highly effective confrontation with Pete the next morning: she knew all along what the purpose of the apartment was, but is now made foolish by his using it to bed women from the neighborhood.

So while Pete counters with divorce, Trudy fends that off, saying he's exiled unless called for and any further transgressions will lead her to destroy him. Seriously, she says destroy. Pete tries to make some comeback about her sleeping alone, but he knows he's in treacherous waters. And if you didn't know it before, be assured that Alison Brie is awesome.

2. Don Draper. On the personal side, he's still juggling Megan and Sylvia Rosen, made especially tricky when Megan confesses to a miscarriage and Sylvia tries to blame Don for their affair and how it makes their spouses look. Don's is gracious with Megan, saying she should have told him about the pregnancy and miscarriage, and calls Sylvia's bluff, saying that she's what he wants and that whatever she's feeling isn't about him. They, of course, are still a thing, though Don does push things a bit by showing up at the Rosen apartment while Dr. Rosen is home. At the end Don sits down in the hallway in front of his apartment door; he's managing things, but for how long?

(We also get some young Don, where he and his mom move into a whorehouse run by his aunt after Don's father dies, giving us some idea of how Don formed his approach towards women as well his mindset of keeping his assignations compartmentalized.)

On the professional side, Don has to deal with Herb the Jaguar dealer, who wants to move most of their ad money to local radio to drive sales. Don hates the idea, but in the meeting with Jaguar oversells the idea so as to sour the top brass on it. It's Don Draper using his powers for evil.

3. Ted Chaough. So much for his marriage retreat, Ted's back in charge and finds that he can exploit Peggy's friendship with Stan as a way to get an account that SCDP is nominally in the market for. Getting a win over Don and company, even when they're not really competing, may be Ted's favorite thing.

Honorable Mention: Roger Sterling. He's only in the episode for a couple of minutes, but they're a good couple of minutes. From his smirk during the Jaguar meeting to his having to explain the Munich Accords to Pete to misquoting Churchill, it's vintage Roger.

Three Down

1. Pete Campbell. Poor dumb Pete. He thought he was being so suave with the Manhattan apartment, but his plan to be the Don Draper of accounts was doomed to fail from the start as he never realized that Trudy is smarter than him. He also can't choose a mistress for beans. His divorce threat is baseless, given the potential payouts to support Trudy and Tammy combined with losing his father in law's business. And then he tries to back Herb's plan for Jaguar's ad campaign and doesn't see Don coming. I'm having a hard time figuring if Trudy's evisceration was worse than Lane punching Pete out; the latter was awesome as a stand-alone incident, but the threat of Trudy lowering the boom has delicious anticipation, as you know it's going to happen eventually.

2. Peggy Olsen. Peggy realizes (or maybe just vocalizes) that she has no friends at work, and her attempt to buck up her staff is horrible, leading them to put a can of feminine powder on her desk with a campaign mock-up that more or less equates her with that not so fresh feeling. She also accidentally sells out Stan when she tells Ted about the Heinz meeting, which Ted wants to use to try to get the ketchup account. Peggy's learning some tough lessons about her profession, which she either didn't or couldn't learn while working for Don.

3. Don Draper's Women. Megan has a miscarriage and feels guilty because (a) she's kind of glad it happened and (b) she never told Don she was pregnant. Sylvia wants to call of their affair, but finds she can't after Don bluntly explains his desire for her and why she's full of it when she tries to put the burden on to him. Joan (here as Don's only female friend) has to deal with Herb during his first visit to the office, which puts Don's hackles up even before hearing Herb's stupid radio plan. You can even throw Don's mom into this, as she has to move her son into a brothel, which rankles her Christian sensibilities and makes her fearful for Don's moral well-being. And rightfully so.

Honorable Mention: Bob Benson. Still smarmy, but kind of getting the points that he needs to reel it in a bit. Though at the end of the episode he seems to be hitching his star to Pete, which at this juncture seems like a really poor idea.