I eat Pop Culture.

Nice to see the kids at Mad Men shaking things up a bit with those dramatic future-forward clips at the beginning:  Peggy sleeping in a fancy hotel suite, Don face down on the floor of a motel room and Betty draped over a plush chaise lounge–and then the episode cuts backs to the present (or day before, however you want to look at it), with Don getting ready for work…And by the way, was it just me or did anyone else think for a split-second Peggy was in bed with Don?!

************************SPOILER ALERT, so for the love of not looking directly at a solar eclipse, please don’t read any further if you don’t want to know what happened in Episode 7*****************************

RECAP:

• Don brings in the New York Hilton Hotels account, Sterling Cooper makes him sign a three-year contract.
• Duck continues to woo Peggy and Pete, sending expensive gifts. Peggy visits him at his hotel suite to return her gift and they end up in bed together.
• Betty, fresh from redecorating her living room, decides to get involved with the Junior League and local politics. Her first assignment, as secretary, is to attempt to halt the production of a large, unsightly water tower.  She reconnects with Henry Francis, the same handsome, distinguished-looking man she met at Roger’s garden party, who just happens to work in the Governor’s office.
• Sally’s teacher continues to put herself out there for Don to pursue and he continues to avoid going there…but he will drive drunk and pick up young hitch-hikers, hang out with them in a road-side motel, take some drugs, and then get knocked out and robbed.

SUMMARY:

Let’s start with Peggy…and DUCK! Did anyone see that coming?? I sure as heck didn’t. Yet, now that it has happened, it totally makes sense. The two of them are using each other…

Duck wants to poach Don’s talent to get back at him. I have no doubt he thinks Peggy is talented and ideal for the female-geared clients at his agency, but he must still be angry over how things went down when PPL merged with Sterling Cooper…and Peggy…well, Peggy is going through all sorts of phases and trying to figure out who she is as a woman and how to conduct herself in a man’s world. Remember the advice Bobbie Barrett gave her: “You can’t be a man. Be a woman. It’s powerful business when done correctly”…prior to their afternoon delight Peggy told Duck she wants to be Copy Chief…and…well, I guess it could be said that she’s trying out the “sex gets you things” tactic. We will just have to wait and see how that works out for her.

Moving on to Betty…she’s really fighting for some independence isn’t she? She’s involved with the Junior League and dabbling in civic issues; she reached out to Henry Francis, so now she’s making her own connections. And although I think there is some chemistry between Betty and Henry, I also think she just appreciates having a man treat her like an adult, she wants to be respected and considered interesting and intelligent. Unlike Don who never speaks with her about things beyond the home, he doesn’t even discuss his contract with her.  Did you notice that after she spoke with Henry on the phone, in the study, she yanked at Don’s locked desk drawer? She must do that every time she’s in there.

…And then that antique fainting couch…she didn’t care if she “ruined” the modern scheme of her recently redecorated living room. She plopped that enormous chaise lounge right in front of the fireplace, because according to her interior decorator, “the hearth is the soul of your home. People gather around a fire even if there isn’t one.”

And finally, Don…and that damn contract.  Now we know the origin of the episode title: 7/23 is the day Don finally committed to Sterling Cooper. Roger’s tactic was to go through Betty, follow up with the lawyer; Bert’s was to bring up the past, that he knows Don isn’t really Don, “when it comes down to it, who’s really signing this contract anyway?”

But the night before he signed it, he had one of his “I have to get away drives” after his fight with Betty, which involved that whole motel-thing. And as scandalous as all that was, the most interesting thing was his hallucination of speaking with his father. The conversation touched on Don’s guilt for what he does, “you grow bullshit,” which gives some validity to Roger’s concern, “I don’t know if you don’t want to do this here or you don’t want to do this at all.” But alas, Don isn’t privileged like Roger, so he has to work and stay where he is, trapped once again. And as he signed the contract he told Bert he wanted no more contact with Roger. I guess Don feels he needs some power somewhere, and between the three men running his life right now–Roger, Bert and Connie–Roger is the only one who didn’t overtly exert dominance by helping himself to Don’s office and Don’s desk chair.

Next week we have Episode 8, “Souvenir”–Don takes Betty on a business trip…hmmmmm. Oh, one last thing: I’m getting anxious that we haven’t seen or heard from Joan…I really hope she pops up soon, I’m going through serious withdrawals.

Let’s get a quick correction out of the way: to clarify the 1963 timeline, the show is now in July. I thought that due to all the coat-wearing an episode or two back that it was already fall.  However, they  mentioned 4th of July in last night’s episode. Possibly in Weiner’s constant attempt to be extremely accurate, the coats signified that spring/early summer in New York in 1963 was on the cooler side? Whatever the case may be, just wanted to update the timeline.

One other thing…I’m going to try a new format with the Mad Men posts. I’ll start them with a quick recap (aka bullet points) and then follow with more in-depth commentary/analysis.

********************SPOILER ALERT —so for the love of Mad Men’s Emmy wins last night (Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series/”Meditations in an Emergency”)!!!!! please don’t read any further if you don’t want to know what happened in Episode 6***********

RECAP:

• Sally is freaked out over her new baby brother. He has the same name and room as her late grandfather, coping with life/death has her afraid of the dark.
• PPL’s Director and Chairman of the Board crossed the Atlantic and crashed Sterling Cooper’s 4th of July holiday (“subtle” as Draper so eloquently put it), to reveal a re-org, with a young economic whiz, Guy MacKendrick now at the helm, and Lane to be shipped off to India.  Harry is the only employee in NY promoted, as head of the Media Department.
• With the Brits in town everyone was on their best behavior, until Lois lost control of Ken’s John Deere lawnmower (courtesy of bringing in the new account) during a drunken reception in the office and ran over Guy’s foot (“just as he got it in the door,” ah Roger, with his never-miss wit!). This quickly changes everything. PPL decides that Guy can’t work now that he’s missing a foot, and they put Lane back in charge.
• It was also Joan’s last day at Sterling Cooper, as she was leaving due to Greg’s anticipated appointment as Chief Resident. Unfortunately, he didn’t get it, and now Joan faces going back to work.

COMMENTARY:

Turning lights on and off, sitting in the dark, that seemed to be a theme in last night’s episode. The show opened with Sally sleeping with her light on, and Don promising her a nightlight if she cleaned her room—which later we see her lying wide-awake in the glow of the new nightlight. That same night, before PPL’s visit, we see Don in bed, in the dark, with a slight smile on his face, in anticipation of what tomorrow’s meeting will bring; and Joan, in her apartment, upon learning Greg’s unfortunate news, stands at the light before sadly turning it off.  For Sally, she’s afraid of the dark, what she can’t see; Don is in the dark about his future with Sterling Cooper, and for Joan–once illuminated with the prospect of being a devoted housewife for her doctor husband, she too is now  in the dark about her future.

With PPL’s visit, Don is once again passed over for a promotion, and immediately takes a meeting with hotelier Conrad Hilton, per Hilton’s out-of-nowhere request. Turns out, Conrad, or Connie as he prefers, was the bartender (or so we thought) that Don bonded with at Roger’s Kentucky Derby garden party. Connie asks Don for advertising advice, Don gives him a nugget and then asks for the account.  Don isn’t an accounts man, he’s creative–so just how will this play out? Roger’s name was left out of the re-org projector presentation, clearly the Brits don’t take him all that seriously, so will he get the credit for the Hilton account? After all, Connie was at Roger’s party, so there is a connection there.

Moving on to Betty/Sally/Baby Gene…I can not say enough about how impressed I am that Mad Men is delving into the painful and dysfunctional side of  sibling rivalry and birth-order issues. Most TV shows deal with this as people are adults, and recalling all the moments of what went wrong. With this show we are watching it happen, the beginning of all the issues everyone’s going to be screaming at each other about in 20 years. Sally, the oldest, coping with life/death, and the confusion Baby Gene is causing her. We see Bobby in the middle, and Betty tending to the newborn with affection, and trying to buy Sally’s security and approval with a gift, rather than directly approach her like Don does at the end.

This is a delicate thing Weiner and the writers are covering, childhood and the dynamics of families and so far they’ve done a brilliant job. I especially love that this all takes place (for the moment) in the late 50′s/early 60′s, a time so often romanticized about, where the reality is glossed over with images of Camelot, perfectly coiffed hair and convertible cars.

And finally, let’s talk about Joan. Sigh, poor Joan. She is so damn calming, she has me wanting to sit next to her on the couch and tell her all about it. So, Greg didn’t get the position, but he’s still a doctor. Of course, this throws a wrench in their dynamic, he’s probably going to feel like a failure, and it will affect his work/home life. And Joan now has to go back to work, which she doesn’t want to do. Will she go back to Sterling Cooper?  She did save Guy’s life with her quick thinking with his blood-gushing injury, so she could probably call in that favor if she wanted to…but there is that Joan-pride thing, she had the perfect opportunity to ask Don for her job back at the hospital, and she didn’t.

So many reasons to tune in next week! We are up to episode 7, “Seven Twenty Three.”  I looked up the date July 23 (7/23),  1963 and couldn’t find anything significant. Anyway, in the upcoming episode, Peggy receives an expensive gift, Betty gets involved with local politics, and Don contemplates his future.