via laughing squid.

(spoilers if you haven’t see Episode 10 yet…)
Don dodged another one, and this was probably the closest call he’s had since he was in Korea.
He probably shouldn’t have spilled to Faye. I don’t doubt she wants to help him but I do think in the process she’ll make things worse.

Pete continues to surprise me, the way he turns bad situations around. Pete decides that the fallout from Don’s exposure will hurt the firm far more than losing a $4 million account will- even when it’s his baby. Pete will save SCDP…

… even as Roger is running it down. How much damage will he do in those thirty days Lee gave him?

What was up with Don calling Betty “sweetie” on the phone, and the utter lack of jealous scowl on Betty’s face when Don told Sally he was taking her to see The Beatles? (But oh how I loved Sally’s reaction to the news!) Then Betty doesn’t hesitate to keep Don’s secret. Not only is she still in love with him, she’s starting to fall back in like with him.

After the waiting room conversation, what do you think Joan did? See ya in 8 months, baby.

Lane- dude, you’re way too old to be playing the “shock daddy” game, and daddy’s having none of it.

And in the end… bullet dodged, Beatles tickets in hand, Don eyeballs Megan, cockiness back in full effect…

Oh, Don.

Have you ever noticed this? I guess it’s a testament to Jon Hamm’s acting skills, but it’s pretty easy to tell when Don Draper is slipping back into being Dick Whitman. His smile is childlike and shy, and he uses both sides of his mouth. When Don Draper smiles, it’s guarded, and smirky.

Here we see Don/Dick as Dick at Anna’s house, where he’s obviously most comfortable (this of course is before he and Anna’s sister had their argument- Don tried to be Don but he was cut down and back to being Dick by the time he walked back into the house.) See his smile? Sweet, happy, relaxed, no attitude.

Now here’s Dick/Don as Don. This is about as big a smile as we get from Mr. Draper. Just a little sideways smirk. Unless he’s drunk.

I really noticed that in last week’s episode, as a very drunk & happy Clio-winning Don leans into the Life Cereal guys and spits out one bad idea after another. That was Dick Whitman talking, not Don Draper. More evidence? The waitress he woke up with two days later calls him Dick, much to his own surprise.

Watch Don Draper’s smile over the next few episodes of Mad Men, I think we’ll see more of the child-like and lost Dick Whitman appearing in Don’s carefully crafted but tearing-at-the-seams persona. Unless he stops drinking. As if that’s gonna happen.

(images via AMC)

Ok, obligatory spoiler alert- if you haven’t seen Mad Men season 4, episode 4, and you hate spoilers, stop reading.

Not sure what was going on the last two episodes, setting up for the future, sure, but as individual episodes I hated them. This one felt better. In fact this one had so much going on I’m going to have to leave a lot out or risk this post going much longer than you want to read.

First, the opening scene (directed by John Slattery): A wide shot looking up at Don smoking, as Don goes over the new cigarette advertising rules which include- no wide shots looking up at the subject to avoid making smokers heroic. No need to reach too deep to get this point: our hero, Don Draper, can’t been seen as the hero anymore.

The nudity we were warned about at the start was art photos in a portfolio. I guess if you paused the DVR and walked up really close to the screen you might see something someone might find “offensive.”

AMC

And speaking of the portfolio, not sure how I feel about Peggy’s new elevator friend, Joyce. I get, and love, that they are bringing in gay characters. We the audience in 2010 picked up that Joyce is a lesbian immediately, but it felt forced. And even in the Village, at an art show, while high, would she have tried to kiss Peggy after less than 20 words had passed between them? Peggy reacted a little too nonchalantly I think. I did love the one secretary’s (forgot her name…) take on Joyce, “she’s kind of pretentious…” which seemed an appropriate reaction in that time and space.

I really hope the writers follow through on the teasers with Peggy. Peggy is the one who will create the coming earthquake at SCDP. I loved Peggy’s turn around when Allison assumed she’d also slept with Don. For Peggy that’s the worst thing you could say about her- that she’s where she is for any reason other than her own skills and talents. Note too her utter surprise about the reaction her work in advertising got at the party (complete disdain.)

While Peggy brings the agency into the explosive culture happening outside, Faye Miller is going to help bring Don Draper into something explosive of his own. He’s the most vulnerable we’ve seen him yet. The looming loss of Anna, typing an apology (of all things) to Allison (btw “this actually happened” was a brilliant line from Allison, harkening back to Don’s words to Peggy after her pregnancy that “this never happened.”) It was Don arguing for a more modern approach to Ponds when Dr. “it’s a woman” Miller’s research said girls just want to get married. Don sees change ahead, he just has no idea what it will look like.

And what’s this? Pete came from out of nowhere and demanded Vicks from his father-in-law. The “son of a bitch” knew the account was his, his father-in-law wasn’t going to get in the way now, with Trudie pregnant. And when the word about the pregnancy gets around, Peggy steps up and makes sure that Pete knows that she hasn’t forgotten what “didn’t happen” between them.

The final scene, like the first, hammers it all home. The middle-aged white men on the inside, the young bohemians on the outside, and Peggy & Pete locking eyes through the glass. Maybe Pete and Peggy will create that earthquake together?

Just a few more days till Mad Men returns!