Mad Men: Hair Trigger Release
Mrs. Blankenship's first name is Ida. I da BLANK en ship. Sounds like some one is being euphemistic about something that they would BLANK.
But Ida is at her desk with her tissue clasped in one hand and her coffee to her lips. She runs Don's office for him. Well, she won't run down the hall after him when Peggy asks her to. Ida just adjusts her wig and stares Peggy down.
And we learn in this episode that there are only a few people who can stare Peggy down these days.
Ida keeps Don in his clothes,
and there are damn few women these days who can keep Don Draper clothed. Kudos to Mrs. Blankenship.
Don also knows now how to use Mrs. Blankenship's special talents. He shows an unpromising job applicant the door and Mrs. Blankenship's behind,
and tells the job applicant, Danny Siegel who is a cousin of Jane Sterling, to kiss it.
Danny: "Do you know a good place to eat around here?"
Don: "Tell my secretary that you're hungry and see what she suggests."
Mrs. Blankenship: "I don't work for you!"
Don't vex Ida, Danny, she'll Blank you up.
UP
Let's look at the opening credits to Mad Men.
Don Draper is falling down from the heights of his building on Madison Avenue, the hub of American Advertising, into the American Desires and Hopes that Madison Avenue exploits to get the Consumers to Consume the American Dream that they dreamed up.
In the middle of the episode, we get something that we haven't seen on the show before.
We look UP at the heights to which we all aspire, especially Don. Contrast this with Don's fall in the opening credits.
Look at the ceiling of the Creative Room at SCDP where the artists and the writers make their marks with their pencils in their aspirations. Joan is the one who has to clean these up.
Look at Roger Sterling, who other than acting the Clown for Lucky Strikes and drinking his weight in alcohol, has taken up writing a book. I think that it is his memoirs.
Roger isn't actually writing the book, he is giving dictation to Caroline, who writes it up for him.
Let's see what Roger's book is about.
It begins with his meeting with Don Draper.
Don sells luxury furs to heels like Roger who are either seducing women with the furs, apologizing for boorish behavior with the furs, and hanging the pelts of their Conquests in the Closet or on the Walls. Men are Hunters; Women are Hunted.
There is a conquest and a pelt of Don's on the Wall of Heller's. It is Betty. Poor Betty, her father wanted her to have her mother's furs. Betty and skinned rabbits and weasels, that is the story of her life.
Don is an aspiring Advertising Man who is trying to get Roger to buy a fur and give him a job. Don puts his portfolio in the fur box for Roger.
The ad that Don made is about drowning. Don is drowning in alcohol, but more about that later. At this time in his life, we assume that Don is functional. Roger is always drowning in alcohol.
Roger declines to notice Don and shows him the door, so to speak.
Don is going to see a lot of doors in this episode. He shows Danny, the job applicant, out of one.
Roger tries on the mink stole that he will buy from Don.
Notice the Mirror? This is Roger's reflection on his first meeting and job interview with Don. Keep in mind, this is Roger's view of what happened.
Why is Roger buying a mink stole? I couldn't remember his first wife ever wearing one. She didn't. Roger was buying the mink stole for his lover, Joan.
Joan looks, acts, and talks like Marilyn Monroe in this scene. It creeps me out. But let's remember, this is Roger's reflection of his relationship with Joan.
Poor Joan, she really likes the bounders and cads, doesn't she?
This is Roger and Joan in 1965. There's a big difference in now and in Roger's mind, isn't there?
Anyway, Don got Roger drunk and told him the next morning that Roger had hired him for Sterling Cooper. They rose up in the Elevator of Ambition and Blind Drunkeness to the Advertising World that resides like Olympus above all of us Consumers.
I assume that Joan got her job the same way that Don did. Playing Roger for a Fool.
Remember Roger is the Fool in this show.
Later Don will get vexed that Roger made a pass at his Pelt Wife, Betty, and Don will take Roger up the Stairway of Revenge and Humiliation. Don will have that same "Gotcha" Look on his face when he makes Roger barf in front of important clients.
People are always riding Roger's back up to the Heights.
That's the way that Roger sees it, and that is the way that he writes it.
The Lost Weekend
Don won a Clio, but lost his weekend.
Clios are the Emmys of the Advertising World. That Glo-Coat commercial has won Don plaudits.
But before Don receives his Clio, we see what happened to Duck after Peggy dumped him for SCDP.
Duck is back on the booze and is also an angry man.
Don/Dick takes a drink to get Duck/Dick out of his head.
Don/Dick accepts his Clio just as the Mother in the Glo-Coat ad releases the Cowboy Boy and tells the Cowboy Boy who has been locked up by her,
Glo Coat Commercial Mom: "Come on cowboy, you're free to go."
And Don/Dick escapes and celebrates his release.
Notice the mussing of Don's hair and it reveals the breakdown of his psyche into Dick Whitman.
During the Life cereal pitch, the first hair lock falls as Don/Dick gags on his slogan. Remember Roger gagging and barfing in front of the clients earlier? Don/Dick is about to do the same.
It is another little boy. But this one isn't imprisoned by his mother. He is free and wolfing down that bowl of Life. Nothing and No one can stop him. And Don's/Dick's hair is mussed.
Don/Dick: "You remember something in the past and it feels good, but it's a little bit painful. Like when you were a kid."
Life Guy: "That's the truth."
By the way, Peggy, you may be good, but don't take credit for Glo-Coat, that is all Don's and Dick's. Sour grapes, Peggy. You didn't like it when Danny stole an idea for his portfolio, don't steal to increase your ego, either.
But the Life guys are drunk and the Big Life doesn't care for the pitch and slogan.
Don has a moment of drunken Ad Logherrea. He barfs up some bad ideas for slogans for the Life Guys.
Don: "Life is just a bowl of life's cereal. Life is Sweet. Enjoy the rest of your life...Cereal. Life...the reason to get out of the bed in the morning. Life...the cure for the common breakfast. Life...its sweetness never ends. Life, eat it by the bowlful."
The Life Guys like to have some cereal tossed up for them in the Conference Room. They like: "Life, the cure for the Common Breakfast."
That was the idea, and the only idea, in Danny's, the job applicant, portfolio.
Peggy and Don rejected him on the basis of that limited idea. The Life Guys embrace Don/Dick on that limited basis. Ain't Life funny?
Peggy is perturbed.
But Don/Dick has celebrating at the Pen and Quill to do.
Notice the hair, it will indicate the amount of booze that Don/Dick has consumed in his lost weekend.
Don tries to pick up Dr. Faye, but she appears to be a young Mrs. Blankenship.
Don: "Mom called. She's looking for us."
Dr. Faye declines to be Don's sister or pick up.
But there are plenty of birds in the Pen and Quill.
Don finds one with hair and morals just as loose as his. Gotta bed a woman whose hair style matches his.
And then Don wakes up a Lost Weekend and two days later, with a waitress who has his care free mussed up bangs.
She calls him Dick and talks about his sister who was with him. Dick closes the door on her. And probably barfs in the toilet.
Then Dick takes to his Fainting Couch.
Yes sirree, Dick was free to go and go he did. As Don/Dick said about his Clio: "You finish something. You find out everyone loves it right around the time it feels like someone else did it."
Peggy Wins a Stare Down
Peggy is stuck with an arty farty male chauvinist pig named Rizzo to come up with a campaign for Vick's Cough Drops, Pete's Father-In-Law's big account.
Rizzo doesn't do much, but bemoan the rejection of his Klu Klux Klan Johnson Presidential Campaign Political Commercial.
Yeah, that would have really won the South for Johnson. Johnson lost the South for the Democrats when he passed the Civil Rights Acts.
Everything is perturbing Peggy these days. Don and now Rizzo.
Rizzo is an insecure creep who says things like this to Peggy: "Man's natural state is nude.
Jesus, you're on the rag.
You won. The prize for the smuggest bitch in the world."
But Peggy strips down and steps into the ring and stares Rizzo down.
There wasn't much to Rizzo after all.
He was a small man.
And here is the Vick's Cough Drop commercial.
Now this commercial is all Peggy. And you know how I know that?
Peggy, you get full credit for this one.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Life
At the Clios, Ted Chaough shows up to annoy Don/Dick.
Roger pronounces it "Cha owwwwgrah". Roger barfs the name out.
Chaough has a general, Major General Frank Alvin, with him who starred in an Bay Rum commercial for him. Roger takes a dislike to the general. "General Rufus T. Bullshit, I've met that guy before."
I think that Roger did. Here is General Jack Ripper from Doctor Strangelove.
Here is General Frank Alvin.
Same guy. Will Alvin start a nuclear war?
Betty Fights a War
Betty is already fighting a war with Don/Dick.
Don/Dick was supposed to pick up the kids on Sunday for his visitation rights, but Don/Dick lost Sunday and Saturday and Friday.
Betty and Henry had plans and Sally and Bobby and Gene were ready to go and see Daddy. Don/Dick/Daddy disappears with the drink just as he did at Sally's birthday party earlier. Sally will have some funny tales to tell about her childhood and her disappearing Daddy and her disappearing Granddaddy. Sally should write a memoir. It would be better than Roger's.
In Conclusion
From the interview with Danny, Don and Peggy object to Danny claiming another person's idea.
Danny: "Don't you ever tear things out of magazines?"
Don: "I don't put them in my book."
Yes, you do. And you claim another person's life and wife, Dick Whitman. You "Drape" yourself in the disguise that you "Don"ed, Don Draper.
Screen Caps by Me