In Which Life Is Like A Bowl Of Life Cereal

Let's Get Liberated

by MOLLY LAMBERT

In a totally premeditated ballsy move, this week's Mad Men was about the CLIO awards and aired the same night as the Emmys. Matthew Weiner definitely cares about winning awards, so if this episode was his attempt to defuse industry gossip that he is an insane egomaniacal credit-hungry Pete Campbell of a showrunner, it didn't work. 

But if there's anything we know about Mad Men, it's that Pete Campbell is the secret (male) hero of the show. The only thing younger people envy about older people is their jadedness, and you don't even know that's what you are envious of until you get there, by which point you don't give a fuck whatsoever because you are jaded too.

What was the craziest backstory revelation from this episode? That Don was just some schmuck working in a fur coat shop when he met Roger? That Joan and Roger's fuckmance predates Don and Roger's bromance? That Peggy Olson can control rogue boners with her mind like Matilda? That Sookie Stackhouse is a human-fairy hybrid?

This episode had some of the best reaction shots in Mad Men history. I demand GIFs of the following: Don's face after he falls asleep while getting blown and then wakes up next up to the ugly waitress. Pete Campbell's face when Lane tells him they're going to bring Ken Cosgrove (ACCOUNTS) on. Don's wasted lean in to smell Dr. Faye's neck.

The hand holding. Peggy's face when that douchebag congratulates her on winning the smuggest bitch in the world award. Pete's face when he tries to stop Don from drunk pitching the LIFE cereal people. Don's entire drunk pitch to the LIFE cereal people.

Speaking of Don's drunk pitch, seriously, it's like they just can't not let Jon Hamm be funny anymore. Sure Don Draper's unfuckable coolness quotient has been nullified through silliness but who cares? Mad Men has been considerably slap-happy this season and it just leads to me dying of laughter several times each episode.

Jon Hamm's portrayal of Don Draper this season has occasionally reminded me of (his BFF) Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer. Just the ways in which straight male peacocking can be hilariously flamboyant and veer into behaving like a petulant child.

Don's attempt to hit on Dr. Faye was so cartoonish and basically completely accurate. There's nothing like a swing and a miss rooted in misplaced beaming drunk confidence. It's a thin line between attractive self-assurance and arrogant buffonery.

The big twist tonight was learning that Don Draper bluffed his way into Sterling-Cooper and then Buellered his way through the rest of the late fifties/early sixties. When Alex Carnevale found me and I got him drunk and hired myself for This Recording I was more or less working at a fur shop (oF thE MIND, INcePTioN!) 

Don's ancient secretary is beginning to remind me of the rotating secretaries on Murphy Brown. I know a lot of people hate her hijinks and find it too hacky and broad, but I'm sure she'll be disposed of with a riding lawnmower in the near future.

Peggy's daughterly relationship to Don is being ruined by the fact that Don is a pretty fucking terrible dad. He likes the praise that comes from bestowing favors and the occasional compliment, but he will never show up for your proverbial recital. He might even have some real sounding excuse but it won't make you feel any better.

Peggy is also starting to resent that part of the reason she is generally tolerated by her male peers is because they are so totally unthreatened by her sexuality. The flip side of this of course is Joan Holloway Harris, who is praised and noted constantly for her sex appeal and appearance but never for her impeccable workwomanship.

There's an old saw about telling smart girls they're hot and hot girls they're smart, but the real point Peggy was making was that women getting compartmentalized into those categories, which are always enforced by the likes of Douchebag Art Director Guy, has absolutely nothing to do with what they are really like as human beings.

Unfortunately it seemed like Peggy's attempt to demonstrate that the Madonna/whore construct is a falsehood/duality didn't exactly go over/make a dent in that guy's thick skull beyond giving him a confused and unattended to erection. Let's just say that sometimes it's hard to have arguments about serious things with total idiots.

Peggy is getting increasingly sick of the glass ceiling, the corporate ladder, and all the bullshit associated with both. She is starting to realize that Don's approval is not worth what she once thought it was. Like Roger she is sick of doing Don's below the line work for him and then not getting any credit. She is sick of not being recognized.

Roger knows he inadvertently created a monster, even if he doesn't realize that he is also a monster (and a child). The chapter on Roger's childhood keeps getting bigger as he keeps getting older and weirder. The theme of aging as return to the pure id expression of childhood came up a lot towards the end of The Sopranos.

I love Roger's memoirs. I would like to see some webisodes just based around Roger dictating his memoirs. He and Kenny Powers are the two fictional characters whose autobiographical audiobooks I would actually really like to listen to. Yo and how about when Joan and Roger and Don almost did the Human Centipede under the table.

I certainly can't complain about the idea that we'll be getting to see more of Ken Cosgrove, magnificent flaxen haired prince of the people, in the future. You just know he's going to slam dunk the fuck out of the Mountain Dew account (and my heart).

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here and twtters here.

"The Needle and the Damage Done (Neil Young cover)" - Laura Marling (mp3)

"Ohio" - Neil Young (mp3)

"My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" - Neil Young (mp3)

In Which I Don't Know What This Room Is For

SALLY'S PSYCHIATRIST CALLED

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Who knew all it would take is divorce for the Drapers to finally develop onscreen chemistry? It's a real screwball comedy figuring out who's to blame for Sally's masturbation mishap. I've never enjoyed Jon Hamm and January Jones in an episode so much as I did in this one. They're a regular Ross and Rachel now! Too bad for Don that Henry Francis is kind of that dude. The dude who is normally that dude, Roger Sterling, was very much not that dude this episode. He was more like Walter Sobchak. 

You know who else is that dude? Pete Campbell! Man I know he's a rapist and always acts like a snitch but he is kind of killing it on the regs this season! When he invoked his paternal responsibilities I gave him a LOL high five through the TV. Wouldn't it be cool if Pete ended up being like an awesome dad? I'm kind of thinking he will be. He's always been the most feminine friendly and forward thinking of the Mad Men men.

It's never not going to be slightly clumsy setting up new villains and love interests in an already established universe, but Mad Men is doing its damndest. I'm really starting to cotton to Focus Group Faye, who is clearly going to be Don's next romantic Donquest, especially once I realized she was the former Mrs. Christopher Moltisanti.

Cara Buono didn't get to do too much on The Sopranos, but that character never had a chance in hell following Adriana La Cerva. However, Dr. Faye might have some good odds on Rachel Menken, who let's face it wasn't even THAT great, we just think of her fondly in comparison to Bobbie Barrett and the grade school teacher.

Can't we just shut up and enjoy the sparks between Faye and Don? I mean, she's hot and smart and has a heavy New York accent and is obviously supposed to be his equal. They haven't even kissed yet, but they had a lot of heat sake bombing together. Just let it play out, okay? You know it's all going to go to hell sooner or later.

The new villain, Ted Shaw, is clearly a foil for Don meant to remind us of the "old" Don from the "old" Sterling-Cooper, the Don we are used to, the Don some people have been bemoaning the demise of this season. Brilliantly, by parodying what was annoying or has become rote about the "idea" of Don Draper the character, Shaw makes us no longer want to see Don be that guy. He's the Cy Tolliver to Don's Al Swearengen.

If anything, we now want Don to change even more because we are realizing that his greatest strength is that ability to change. No longer chained to being "Don Draper, Sixties Alpha Male" could be ultimately liberating for him, just like it will be liberating when Joan and Betty realize what Peggy already instinctively knows, that it's not that much fun to be Mrs. anybody compared to how nice it is to just be yourself.

What was more tone-deaf, those Clorox bleach ads that suggest using Clorox to get your mistress's lipstick off your collar (UR MISSING THE POINT) or the AMC in-house promos for Jerry Bruckheimer's Pearl Harbor? Who is more tone-deaf about Pearl Harbor, Jerry Bruckheimer or Roger Sterling? Wasn't Don's date with Bethenny Anna Newlin Van Nuys the best Benihana date scene since The Forty Year Old Virgin?

I can't believe Roger was such a racist dick in that Honda account meeting. It was obviously not just about Pete Campbell's chip or whatever. We know from his blackface exploits that Roger can be a racist dick but I thought he was just going to say something racist but wry (wrycist?) like "Japanese girls. Beautiful. Sideways vaginas." 

Sally overshadows Bobby, but Meadow Soprano was also always more central to Sopranos plotlines than A.J., although I loved in the last seasons when A.J. came to the forefront and whiffed spectacularly at being the kind of man Tony Soprano is.

Real Talk though, what was Sally getting off to watching "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."? That one of the dudes kind of looked like Don? Or that they were tied up together? Is she into gay slash fic? Or was it just run of the mill masturbation out of boredom and horniness? I mean her friend was ASLEEP. It's not like she was masturbating ON her. 

I enjoyed the whole Honda plot where they incepted the other ad dudes. I reference Inception so much lately that my friend tells me my references have no meaning. That's when I say "yeah exactly maaaaaaaaaaan" and hit the bong knowingly. 

Actually I spent most of Inception trying to figure out what Leonardo DiCaprio's character's name was (Dom? Tom? Thom? Rob? Bob?) much like I spent this Mad Men trying to figure out what Don's new nemesis's last name is (Chaw? Shaw? Schaw?)

The song they played at the end was "I Enjoy Being A Girl" from Flower Drum Song, a song that figures heavily into my own personal mythology since I protested having to sing it in probably 4th grade on the basis that it was sexist. I got in trouble a lot in elementary school for arguing about radical gender politics (nothing has changed).

The important thing is, Don's going to get horizontal on a couch with somebody other than the whore who slaps him around. Soon Don will be forced to talk to a therapist about himself. And you know what? It will probably be good for him.

There is no change without acknowledgement. Maybe even Don is ready to admit that the "old" Don Draper, which was Dick Whitman's conception of a sort of ideal man, kind of fucking sucks. Since that life phase is over anyway, why not let go of it completely so that a better more zen Don Draper might emerge? It's like Inception.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She twitters here and tumbls here.

"About a Girl (acoustic)" - Nirvana (mp3)

"Bad Girls" - Donna Summer (mp3)

"I Enjoy Being a Girl" - Tiny Tim (mp3)

In Which Right Now My Life Is Very…

Did You Get Pears?

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Who else cheered when Allison chucked the golden snitch at Don? Yes that's right, Donald "This Never Happened" Draper, "this actually happened." You can't just stick the tip in one night and then pretend you forgot about it the next day because you were so wasted! I mean, you can! Unless you have to see them all the time by necessity, but that's why you don't dip your dick in the company cold cream!

Sometimes it's more important to tell the truth than to save face. The first three seasons of Mad Men were about the social pressures and restrictions that stop people from being honest with others, let alone themselves. So far this season has been about the unassailable internal problems that override those human constructed dams.

Everyone's an expert and a hypocrite when it comes to matters of the heart. When Allison's feelings about Don start leaking out in the conference room, Peggy tells her to stuff them in a sack. Later when Peggy finds out that Pete knocked up Trudy, she is unable to do anything but bang her head on a desk. Perhaps a more subtle gesture could've been used to indicate Peggy's feelings, but I thought it was very accurate.

Often when real emotional trash goes down you'll have a visceral physical reaction that feels especially unwelcome given that you are dealing with feelings, which theoretically ought to just give you mental anguish. And yet there you are, banging your head against the wall, or doubled over in violent pain, or throwing up in the hallway.

The difference between what should happen and what does happen is another one of Mad Men's major themes, along with the differences between the person you are and the person you present yourself to the world as being. Even if you want to keep your inner feelings entirely to yourself, as Don does, your body might still sell you out.

Don criticizes Faye Faith Popcorn for sticking her finger in people's brains and getting them to talk. One of Jon Hamm's greatest skills as an actor is his ability to convey simultaneously the many different levels of Don Draper's bluffing while making it fully believable that most other people would see only the very top layer. 

Peggy's cool downtown party was perfect. I swear I went to that party last weekend. The guy with the bear head turned out to be a bear. Telling a lesbian that your boyfriend rents your vagina is the kind of flirty neg cool art dykes live for.

How many sweatshop drug parties and exhilarating dashes from the NYPD will it take Peggy's new lady friend to unlock her potential bicuriousness? Who will get Peggy to cuckold her dopey fiance first, her new lesbian buddy or her metrosexual officemate? 

This episode was directed by none other than silver fox John Slattery! Perhaps that is why it was so very wry. It's like Matthew Weiner heard the internet complaining about how season 3 focused way too much on Don and Betty's marriage breaking down and not enough on the Sterling-Cooper office, and then granted us our dream of banishing Betty to a plotless corner so that we can spend more time with Joan, Pete, and Peggy.

We all know what the ancient couple with the pears signifies for Don's new secretary. Bobbie Barrett was a gateway drug and now Don's going to start banging old ladies on the reg. The real tragedy of this episode is that my intended, that all American idiot Ken Cosgrove, has given his dowry to some betch. Farewell to thee Kenny C, my blond prince of Vermont. I'm sorry your pretty boy swag was too much for creative. 

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here and twitters here. You can find last week's Mad Men review here.

"We Shall Be Free" - Woody Guthrie (mp3)

"Oregon Trail" - Woody Guthrie (mp3)

"Springfield Mountain" - Woody Guthrie (mp3)