Monday, April 30, 2012

MOTHER AND CHILD REUNION:  This post is brought to you by Dow Corning. They make fancy plates and glassware ... and napalm.



Oh, little Sally, welcome to the adult world. You don't get to wear makeup or gogo boots yet, the ballroom does not allow you to enter via staircase ala Cinderella, the cod tastes like cod, and, oh yeah, that's your step-grandmother giving Roger Sterling a blowjob in the back.  Dirty, indeed.

I don't know that I have anything original to say about this week's episode, centered on the many ways in which parents and children can disappoint each other, other than to note how much of it is marked by the absence of parents as well -- Peggy's father and Betty, of course, but also Don's parents as well as his office dad Bert Cooper, none of whom were there to see him receive the award.

What I'm most intrigued by in this episode is Peggy's decision: excited by the prospect of marriage in the way that seemed to catch her off-guard, I wonder how much she's consciously settling for the best offer available to avoid loneliness (not that she would be lonely for long), and how authentically happy she is with taking this step with Abe. He does love her ham, after all.

10 comments:

  1. sconstant11:10 AM

    The only thing I have to say that hasn't been gone through by Sepinwall was how perfectly Alice (the wife of the Heinz guy) managed things.  She doesn't get to pick, but if she did, she'd pick hanging with Megan sometimes.  So she makes sure to get a chance to tip off Megan that this is the time for any last ditch effort, knowing that Megan will tell Don, and she also gives a bit of encouragement to the pitch being successful.  Just a lovely small bit of character writing/acting.

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  2. isaac_spaceman11:26 AM

    I haven't watched, but your tag line reminded me of Better Off Ted.  "We've weaponized pumpkins." 

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  3. I've been struggling with Mad Men this season. While I can appreciate the episodes and storylines intellectually, I haven't really been ENJOYING the show. Until last night. That was the show's best episode since The Suitcase. Everything about the episode worked perfectly, both in the context of the stories themselves and in how they thematically tied together. And as everyone else has said, the Roger/Sally scenes were pure (Sterling's) gold. La Shipka (TM "James Van Der Beek") really held her own against Slattery.

    One detail I loved: Peggy's water pitcher. I think my parents had that set of glassware from their wedding in 1970.

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  4. Someone on twitter (can't remember who) said that we need a spin-off, a Roger Sterling/Sally Draper are cops show called Go Get 'Em Tiger.

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  5. In addition to everything else, some great Peggy/Joan interaction.  It reminds me of their wonderful scene in last season's finale.

    "Men don't take the time to end things. They ignore you, until you insist on a declaration of hate."  Joan has always been the sadder-but-wiser girl, but she's even more so now.

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  6. Marsha5:36 PM

    sconstant, I have to say that I totally missed the nuance there - I read the scene entirely as Megan earning her stripes and ignored Alice's machinations completely, but of course you're absolutely right. Thanks for the insight!

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  7. Marsha5:37 PM

    It's amazing how far those two have come. And wonderful to watch.

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  8. Anonymous7:52 PM

    It's actually Dow Chemical, not Dow Corning, who made napalm, I know because the trains filled with napalm used to go through our neighborhood clearly marked. Dow Corning is a totally separate business, although co-owned. Not that anyone cares, but dammit I was that close to death as a kid and someone's gonna hear about it! Carry on.

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  9. Stevie10:16 PM

    The name was me - the idea was based on a retweet from Rian Johnson.

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  10. Jessica11:08 PM

    Joanie was speaking directly to my heart today, and it rang out as this amazingly true line. Of course I then expected it to be subverted, and that Abe was a guy who really would take the time to end things.

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