In my write-up of last week's episode, I said that I wanted to see less of Betty, Joan, Peggy, and Faye. Needless to say, I did not get my wish. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this episode quite a bit, because I thought the writers did interesting things with each of these characters:
1. Betty's decision not to panic over Sally, but to stick her with Don for 24 hours proved to be very entertaining, and to give us a lot of information about Sally and her dad. Anyone who is a dad, of course, will quickly recognize that Don did almost everything wrong this week -- he was too soft (pizzas and the zoo?) but he also failed to actually talk to Sally seriously about her concerns regarding life in Westchester County. He was punished for his sins, of course, as Sally humiliated him in front of the office -- but my guess is that she has more punishment in store for him. Betty was at her most suave and cunning when she came to pick up Sally -- I prefer seeing her in that Alpha-female role, and I wish they did more to develop that side of her personality, instead of emphasizing how weak she can be.
2. Joan simply made one mistake after another this week. She shouldn't have accepted the massage from Roger. She shouldn't have gone to dinner with Roger. She shouldn't have shown Roger that she still has feelings for him. Let's be clear: Roger is bad news. For all his charm and wit, he is simply an older and more elegant version of Don. He's not really interested in making women happy, and he had no compunction about breaking Joan's heart in the past. Nevertheless, I like how the show demonstrates that the same Joan who is so competent in the office is so clueless in her personal life.
3. Peggy met yet another guy who doesn't take her career very seriously. In fairness to Abe, however, I don't think his views had anything to do with the fact that Peggy is a woman -- he doesn't see how anybody could take advertising seriously. I find Peggy's whining on this point to be incredibly frustrating. If she still went to church, a priest could point out to her that God has given her an enormous blessing -- she actually likes to do the thing that society is willing to pay her to do. Very, very, very few people get paid for their hobby -- she and Don are two of those people. As a result, she never feels the spiritual agonies that people like Roger and Pete have to go through in order to make money. But instead of reveling in this fact, she complains that no one else is happy for her. (By the way, I find Peggy's magical lesbian friend to be ridiculous and annoying. If a show has a political agenda that makes it impossible to be critical of lesbians, then the show shouldn't introduce lesbian characters -- there are no perfect people, and there should be no perfect TV characters.)
4. Faye is headed for the same type of misery that has always sucked up Don's annual "serious" girlfriend. We can only hope that somehow she meets up with Rachel and the schoolteacher, and they can all comfort each other. I did like the fact that she was so bad at talking to Sally; it gave an interesting twist to her character.
To be clear, I enjoyed the episode a lot more than these comments let on -- there was brilliance in almost every scene. The girl who plays Sally is a great actress, and she was excellent from beginning to end. Miss Blankenship and Bert Cooper doing the crossword puzzle, the stammering client, the effort to hide Miss Blankenship's body, the way Roger dealt with the mugger -- there was really one fine moment after another. But this episode brought home to me a big hole that has always been present in "Mad Men" -- the indifference of the male characters toward the female characters. Almost everything that happened in this episode, for example, was the direct result of a husband, father, or boyfriend being indifferent to the feelings of the women in his life. And that theme runs throughout "Mad Men" -- look at how Pete has treated Trudy, or how Harry cheated on his wife, or Ken's chasing and tackling the secretaries, or all the women in the suburbs whose husbands cheat on them.
I realize that men are not perfect, but "Mad Men" is simply too cynical on this point. Men fall in love with women all the time. Many men sacrifice themselves and their interests to make women happy. This isn't only true now -- it was true then, too. I would like the women stories in "Mad Men" better if there were one male character who would show that type of love and devotion. Otherwise these stories appear to be simply promoting an agenda -- and not reflecting real life.
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