I'm already late with this post, so I'm going to take the lazy, bullet-pointed way out, and just list what I liked about this episode. There was a lot. If we ignore "The Good News" from a few weeks ago, and the show keeps on this streak, season four may shape up to be Mad Men's strongest yet. Here are 6 things that made this episode great:
- Don's drunken downfall. Sure, he drinks. A lot. It's like a running gag. But in "Waldorf Stories," Don's alcoholism -- we can call it that now, right? -- takes a rather frightening turn as he loses an entire day (in which he apparently introduces himself as "Dick," at least to the waitress he brings home). It's pretty impressive how the show shifts from funny, ebullient Don -- his one-after-the-other pitch of possible Life cereal slogans was hilarious -- to surly, shattered Don.
- All things Peggy. I love how she's come into her own in her relationship with Don this season, and her undressed game of chicken with the obnoxious new art director was one of the highlights of the episode (but not for the reasons you'd think).
- The Don/Roger parallels. We spend part of this episode flashing back to the 1950s, when Don still sold fur coats...to people like Roger Sterling (who was buying one for Joan). At first, it seems like this is a story of how Don impressed Roger with his initiative. In the final scene, we learn that he only got the job because Roger hired him during a bender...just as Don would, several years later, be forced to hire the inept copywriter Danny for similar reasons.
- Odds and ends: The shot of Joan holding both Roger and Don's hands before the award was announced. Duck Phillips heckling the emcee, then being booted from the ceremony, prompting Don to say "I feel like I already won." And Ms. Blankenship, who like every other character on the show, has her own Twitter feed.
I'm going to try to start posting on Mad Men much earlier than I have been starting this weekend. The show is too good these days to get a short shrift.
Tom Coombe
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