Okay kids, put your seat belts on. It’s time for another minute-by-minute recap of last night’s episode, “The Rejected,” also known as Pete Spawns, Experimental Peggy, and Don’s Dirty Laundry is Hanging Him. FYI this episode was directed by Roger!!!!
10:01: Roger’s Back! Don’s chain-smoking.
10:02: Don: “Why is this bottle empty?” Secretary: “Because you drank it!” Enter Peggy and Dr. Miller. Don: “Did you bring ice?”
10:03: Petulant Pete tantrums that he’s not in on Lucky Strike call. Roger tells Pete Clearasil’s out and advises “Throw yourself on the grenade.” Am I on the wrong channel? Is this The Jersey Shore? (“I took the grenade so Pauley could have the pretty one???”)
10:04: Roger calls a false fire alarm to get client off phone. “Look, Radio City’s burning!” I want to work with Roger!
10:05: Roger to Don’s secretary: “Write everything down. Wait, strike that we’re overbilling Lucky Strike.”
10:06: (That column in Pete’s office is like the Dating Game—you never know who’s on the other side.) Oh, look, Harry Crane’s eating at Pete’s desk reading the NYT wedding section. Pete: “Puerto Rican Girls buy brassieres!” Lunch with Cosgrove—tag-a-long Pete!
10:07: Life, lesbians, Peggy & Porn. Where’s Sal???? Nobody could do lesbian like Sal. I miss Sal!!!(And is it me or does Joyce look like she could be the twin sister of Otter from Animal House?)
10:08: Pete meets FIL (father-in-law) for Dewar’s lunch. His High Wasp flag is flying.
10:09: FIL drops the bomb on Pete before Pete can drop the bomb on FIL. Pete’s spawning—the birth of the Young Regan Republicans. And I love FIL’s callous afterthought about his wife, “Jeannie had her uterus removed. Some kind of cyst or something.” (Or was it an illegal abortion???)
10:10: Baby’s out of the bag and Clearasil is off the table.
10:11: Trudy to Pete: “How do you know how this feels?” Go Trudy! (BTW, is it me or is it painful to watch Pete kiss Trudy—so awkward. Which makes me wonder if the baby is really Pete’s????)
10:12: Trudy saves the day again, “I’ll tell my father Clearasil is out over Yankee Pot Roast.”
10:13: Despite her attempts to be coolly independent, Don smirks as he watches Peggy trying on Dr. Faye’s (with the “e” or without the “e”?) engagement ring while they’re supposed to be observing the focus group.
10:14: Dr. Fay with the “e” tries to be one of the girls.
10:15: LINE OF THE NIGHT: Freddie to Don: “Your financial future is in the hands of a roomful of 22-year-old girls.” Don: “Not mine!” Everything but Don’s financial future has been in the hands of 22-year-old girls!
Commercial Break with cool fun facts about advertising. I like those fun facts.
10:19: Dottie: “Me and my boyfriend stayed up late and we were playing house.” Euphemism for sex?????
10:20: Don squirming uncomfortably in chair when his secretary starts to talk and cry.
10:21: Roger’s sloppy, dammit!
10:22: Lane gets lost around Pete’s column—should I drive on the left or the right hand side? These bloody Americans and their columns! He tells Pete that since he’s giving FIL a grandchild that should take the sting out of things. But Lane, what will take the stick out of your butt? I like plastered prostitute Lane from last week! YEEHAW!
10:23: Cryfest in conference room. Oh, and there goes Don’s secretary bolting out of the room. Don’t upset Don! Look what happened to Betty—she married a corpse in Reno!
10:24: Spurned & burned secretary Allison assumes Peggy slept with Don. “He’s a drunk and they get away with murder because they forget everything!”
10:25: Pissed-off Peggy: “Your problem is not my problem.” Subtext “I had Pete’s baby and Don helped me bury the body!”
10:26: Commercial Break—time for a Dewar’s!
10:30: Lunch with Cosgrove. Did Pete just say “Mea Culpa?”
10:31: Pete: “Trudy is with child.” What???? But I love Cosgrove’s reply, “Another Campbell? That’s just what the world needs.” (BTW, fast forward to 1983 when I went to the senior prom with Campbell’s kid. I’m not kidding!)
10:32: Power shift as Pete realizes Cosgrove not as carefree as last year. He’s trying to turn Mountain Dew into Pepsi. Pete’s trying to turn zit cream into cold medicine. But I love when Pete says, “I’m floating laterally.” I feel the same way Pete!
10:33: EPISODE’S BITCH SLAP MOMENT—Ken “You’re all slaves to Draper. I’d rather be a slave to creative than slave to an old fart.” What???? What did you and your perfect hair just say about Don????? His old fart would rip you into the 21st century! And Don didn’t let an unlicensed secretary ride a tractor around the office that decapitated someone’s foot!
10:34: Don’s secretary quits. “You’re not a good person!” “Write your own letter of recommendation and I’ll sign it. You’ve been sparkling in your duties.” Oh Don, big mistake! These 1965 22-year-olds are a lot different than those 1960 22-year-olds. These women have read Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique.
10:35: DUCK DON!!! SHE’S AIMING THE PAPERWEIGHT STRAIGHT AT YOUR BRYLCREEMED HEAD!!!!
10:36: Don to Joan: “I’m going to need a new secretary, and this cleaned up.” What cleaned up? Your life? Joan fixes while Don mixes…another drink. Don despises office drama!
CLASSIC PEGGY MOMENT: Did you see her head in Don’s transom spying on him and his secretary???? I love it!!!! Especially her desk dive when Don turned her way!
10:37: Peggy invited by new “friend” Joyce to a “I don’t know what to call it,” downtown.
10:38: Commercial: Okay, here we go again with the Mad Men Sterling Cooper spin-off commercials. This week it’s Suave. Notice the not-so-subtle references to blindly sleeping with women? Is Suave veiling their sexism by setting their commercials in the ‘60’s? Note to AdMen: Makes me really hate Suave.
10:41: WORDS THAT WILL NEVER COME OUT OF MY MOUTH: “I’ll show mother the maid’s room.”
10:42: Pete grows a pair and tells FIL “I want it all! Vicks 44, vapo-rub…Trudy, do we have any ice?” (What is it with the ice tonight?) FIL’s reply, “You son-of-a-bitch.” Pete shrugs it off—his spawn has leverage.
10:43: Afterhours Don drinking in office—lights off, hat’s on. Don at home looking very Frank Sinatra “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.” What’s he doing at the typewriter? An apology??? An apology? Don doesn’t apologize! Whew! He crumpled it up. I thought we lost you for a moment, Don.
10:44: Downtown Peggy in her Warhol stripes. “You look swelegant!” Reminiscent of Don in his Season One rendezvous downtown. Is Peggy the female Don?
10:45: Peggy! There’s a bear coming at you with a beer! “I’d like a beer.” Imagine all the hours of acting school just to get a walk-on wearing a Bear’s head. How do you put that on a resume?
10:46: “It’s easier to get high than get a beer.” See Peggy take her first toke.
10:47: WAS THAT A STEALTH GIRL-ON-GIRL KISS? My opinion--it has to be manlier than getting kissed by Pete. Peggy: “I have a boyfriend.” Joyce: “He doesn’t own your vagina!” Peggy, “No, but he’s renting it.” Funny Peggy! (And did they just say va-jay-jay on TV?)
10:48: BEST NON-SEQUITUR: “I’m Catholic!” I feel your pain Peggy. Me too. And oddly enough, blurting out that non-sequitur has worked for me from everything from I can’t date you to I can’t stop drinking.
10:49: “Art in advertising? Why would anyone do that after Warhol?” BEAT IT! IT’S A RAID! Peggy hiding high in the closet making out with writer boy. Joyce to the rescue! Hey, was that a UPS truck turning the corner in SOHO?
10:50: Commercial—top off Dewar’s.
10:53: Mrs. Blankenship is Dame Edna meets Bea Arthur. Ooh—Joan’s way of punishing Dick. I mean Don.
10:54: Roger to the Rescue: “What did you do to get her out of mothballs?”
10:55: Pete “I turned chicken shit into chicken salad.” Feeling mighty cocky now that everyone knows his cock crows!
“Contribution for the Campbells?” “No, I’ll just sign the card and pretend I paid.” (Oh, how I miss those office collections!) Peggy sees stork card “Trudy’s Pregnant?” Here comes the “I refuse to cry” look perfected in acting school. I love the headbanging on the desk.
10:56: Peggy: “Congratulations.” Pete: “Yes, a 6 million dollar account is great.” Peggy: “No, the baby.” Pete: “Oh, I guess that is news.” Pete you dickhead.
10:57: “Dr. Miller’s here to see you. It’s a she.” I LOVE THIS NEW SECRETARY!
10:58: DON’s PHILOSPOHIC MOMENT: “You can’t tell how people will behave based on how they have behaved.” Really Don?
10:59: Did Don just say “Blah, blah, blah…?” OMG! WTF?
11:00: Through the looking glass—Peggy and her new cool friends, Pete with the suits. Prolonged, pregnant stare. Oh Peggy, really????
11:01: Don in his hallway with old man repeatedly asking his wife, “Did you get pears? Did you get pears?” OMG that’s me and my husband in 30 years!!!! I have to look into the past to look into my future???? Don, don’t just close your door—LOCK IT!
Until next week, kids, stay swell!
