Mad Men: Sally Can't Drive

When it comes to these Mad Men recaps, I feel like I'm outclassed by a bunch of other writers. Consequently, I'm just going to tackle the show in short bursts from now on.

  No big essays or analyses; if something catches my interest as I watch, I'll make a note of it. Think of these blog posts then as a whole bunch of Tweets at once. Spoilers, as always, lie ahead.

• Last week, I was pretty cool to the Sally/Grandpa Gene subplot, but this week I couldn't get enough of Gene's reign of terror/permissiveness (he lets Sally drive! And she's actually pretty good at it!)/occasional insight.
• Of course, Gene doesn't make it to the end of the episode, leaving Sally without any positive adult influence in her life. Sure, the whole driving thing could go, really, really wrong. And he probably shouldn't be telling Bobby about how he "beat the clap." But there he was, telling Sally he believed in her. And making her smile. She hardly ever smiles, her grandfather dies, and her family is unable to comfort her, or even explain to her that sometimes people will laugh as a way to deal with death. I still maintain the final scene of Mad Men will take place in the 1990s, with an adult Sally Draper telling a therapist "...and that's all I remember about my dad, doctor."
• Speaking of bad ideas, I loved Horace's insanely unrealistic plan to make jai alai the next American national passtime (Show it on all three networks! Make its biggest player a TV star!). I also loved Pete's assertion that this is just the type of thing his late father would have invested in. The same father who died broke, of course.
• Ah, Peggy. Not even innocent free kittens are safe in your quest to move to Manhattan. Loved seeing Carla Gallo as Peggy's potential roommate. Loved the prank call, loved Joan's advice. Felt bad at Peggy's mom's reaction to the move. ("You'll get raped"?!). Loved the little knowing look Peggy flashed at Don when the Patio ad bombed. Love anything to do with Peggy these days.
• About that Patio ad: Why did it fail? More importantly, what was behind Sal's wife's look after he did his little Ann-Margaret routine in their bedroom? Was it a black-and-white "My husband is gay" look? Or did it just mean "Something's really wrong here"? Either way, that scene was painful, mainly for the knowledge that some version of it has probably played out many, many times at the Romano house.
• Back to Gene: is it just a medical urban legend that people with brain tumors will smell oranges? Gene mentioned that he smelled them during the ice cream (with-- ick -- salt) scene.
• Bad parenting advice abounded this week. The only comfort Sally got from her dad was "Go watch TV," where she saw footage of an old man burning to death (the famous self-immolating monk in Vietnam). And then there's Gene: "It's not good for a pregnant woman to be on her feet. Sit down. Have a cigarette." Christ, isn't that baby going to be poisoned enough without a steady pre-natal diet of nicotine and scotch? Or whatever brown liquor 60s housewives imbibed?
• Don seemed pretty detatched -- well, more so anyway -- from the proceedings this week, swooping into serve as the voice of moral authority at work with the jai alai account, much less comfortable playing that role at home.
• How much do we want to read into the shot Joan killing off the surviving ants in the ant farm?

 Tom Coombe

Comments

[Chris Casey]

Tom, when does lost come back again, or Breaking Bad? I need real TV.

[Tom Coombe]

They both return in early 2010, and (I think) both in February.

You don't consider Mad Men "real TV"?