This week on Mad Men we get more Joan (FINALLY), Betty defends her title of “Best Worst Mother in the World”, the British Invasion takes an interesting turn, and HOLY CRAP DID THAT SERIOUSLY JUST HAPPEN ON MY TV?
On the home front, Sally is afraid of the dark and Baby Gene. Turns out that she thinks the baby actually is her Dad Grandpa come creepily back to life. Fair enough.
Weird Bobby replacement continues to weird me out. Did he just ask to “pet” the baby? Yes he did.
When Bobby complains that he is bored Betty comes up with these two gems:
“Go bang your head against a wall”
“Only boring people are bored”
At the office, everyone is told that their Independence Day holiday is going to be getting off the late start because THE BRITISH ARE COMING! Joan is particularly annoyed, because it messes with her last day at Sterling Cooper (her husband is supposed to be promoted to Chief Resident). The girls all scramble to rearrange plans for her going away party. Somehow Peggy was oblivious to all of this.
We learn that
Bert Cooper seems to think that the British are coming with the intention of promoting Don, and plans thoughts in his heads about a London life. Then he forces Roger to kiss and make-up over a shave. While Don is getting a closer shave, Roger gets a manicure and tells a lovely anecdote about his father’s dismemberment. Holy Foreshadowing, Batman!
At the Harris (not Patrick) residence that evening, Joan’s asshole of a husband stumbles home drunk in the middle of the night. Turns out that he didn’t get the promotion, and he was told he doesn’t have and brains in his fingers. Now he’s stuck with another year of residency and tells Joan they would have to move to some god forsaken place like Alabama if he ever wanted to be a surgeon. In the meantime, Joan’s just going to have to keep on supporting them. So now Joan has to walk into Sterling Cooper for her triumphant last day, but somehow manage to slip in a “jk, I totes need this job, ya’ll.” At this point we are trying to figure out how to get Greg in close proximately to that lawnmower.
Back at the office, The British have arrived! Hey
So, that went well for no one, with the exception of Harry Crane who somehow managed to get bumped up the ladder. Everyone’s in a real party mood, now! Guy announces his new title to the troops, but quickly turns the attention to Joan to celebrate her final day.
“I wish you caviar, children, and everything else good…”
Joan bursts into tears (and brakes our hearts!), but manages to make it through with dignity and without mentioning that she’ll be coming back after the holiday. Peggy pulls her aside to tell her that she wanted to get her something, and then starts talking about how much Joan has done for her, and that she’ll miss her, but we never get to see the end of this conversation because . . . .
Someone thought it was a great idea to mix drunken secretaries and lawnmowers. Smitty hands the wheel over to Lois (oh girl, we love you, always have) who shockingly enough doesn’t know how to drive a riding lawnmower. She quickly loses control and CUTS OFF GUY’s foot, splashing blood all over the smiling people next to her (yes, I have this gif, but I’ll avoid posting it for the faint of heart), and she crashes through a set of glass doors. Guy is screaming in pain and horror. Everyone is freaking out. Lois’s “Oh God, WHAT DID I DO?” actually made me laugh. Peggy passes out into Pete’s arms. Don’t worry though, because Joan apparently has brains in her fingers (suck it, Greg!) and quickly hops in to get the situation under control. She wraps a tourniquet around his ankle and gets the bleeding under control, while barking out orders to people around her. Is this like standard office manager training? If so, I sincerely hope no one is dismembered while Mr. Hooker is in charge.
Roger missed the main event – I think because he was in Bert Cooper’s office watching him eat pudding, setting him up for the great line, "It looks like Iwo Jima in here". And then a scene happens, with him and the guys, where they’re tossing around blame and guilt. Honestly, I’m not sure what happened, because the entire time a guys is squeegee-ing Guy’s blood off the window behind them, and we are laughing ourselves to death.
Don missed all the fun because he’s was invited to a special meeting with Conrad Hilton (yes, like the hotel) who turns out to be the guy Don had that chat with in the bar at Roger’s party a couple weeks back. He’s looking for free advertising advice, Don gives him a little taste, waxes poetical like Don Draper does, and then sets himself up for a chance at the Hilton business. Thank god, because the mouse-centric ad campaign Hilton was working on was made of fail.
''That's life. One day you're on top of the world and the next some secretary is running you over with a lawn mower.''
For a second there, I am totally prepared to ship Don and Joan. She ends up saying goodbye, kissing him on the cheek, and still neglecting to mention that she needs her job back. GIRL! You better get on that!
The Brits inform us that Guy has lost his foot, but not his life (thanks to Joan). It sure is too bad that he can’t work in advertising anymore, according to them. Don doesn’t quite get what the problem is, but we’re assured that since he can’t play golf anymore there is no way he can be taken seriously in the workplace. Fair enough. Handicaps are for losers.
So, to wrap it up things on the home front, Don straightens out Sally, telling her that her brother is just a baby and not her dead grandfather. Phew!
Oh, and I didn’t find a place to slip it in there, but we were very excited to see Kurt pop back up! We were worried about him.
Also, do you think John Deere had a real good grasp on how Mad Men was going to work in their product placement? How's that working for you guys?
1) A lot of Joan in this episode, which was a good thing!
ReplyDelete2) Mr. Sheffield shooting this episode is the reason Sleuth rehearsals were cut one week short because he had to go out to LA to film it. And spoiler alert, I think he went back for more too.
3) LOVED the lawnmower bit. I was mortified but pleased at the same time.
4) Go bash your head into the wall was my favorite line of the night. Oh Betty and your Bobby hatred.