What I Saw: Mad Men, Season 7, Episode 8
I just thought that I would add my interpretation of Roger Sterling's psychedelic picture in his office. Mine is a little more Mathmatically Abstract. Geez, I miss Bert Cooper's Japanese prints and screens.
But first, let me look at Roger Sterling.
Roger is now Yosemite Sam with two hot pistols in each hand. He actually offered to take one of his dates home before he and the other one got nasty. Huh? No Ménagerie à Trois? How disappointing. Roger is not as Sexually Forward as I thought, or he thought.
This Episode was all about the Road Not Taken because of various motives of the characters: Revenge, Financial Transactions, Can't Find the Damned Thing, I Am All Body and No Soul, and Why Should I Get Off My Ass, It is too Comfortable on It.
Late Night With Don Draper
"You're not supposed to say anything." says Don to an auditioning model. "Just listen to the soothing and seductive sound of my voice." And Don does have a late night Barry White playing radio station voice. Look at the cup in his hand. It is from his favorite late night crummy dinner. The dinner has Greek overtones, remember the crummy Greek dinner that Don and Peggy went to to discuss an ad campaign? They left when one of the sight seers at the painted-on-the-wall Parthenon started crawling off to its lair to breed.
"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" says Don to Diana, literature-loving waitress at the Crummy Greek diner.
Usually that line works, but it was all financial transaction on Roger's dime (or Benjamin).
Rachael Mencken had been seduced by that late night voice of Don. Oh look! Rachael has a smiley face and Ted has a frowny face. Ted must have flown over Yosemite in his two piston packing engined airplane.
Don does have a type, the wicked stepmother Abigail type. Thin and brunette and withholding. Don still wants to feed his hunger at the bar.
But it's not booze or sex this time.
Could it be love? Acceptance? A Mission Statement? What?
Peggy and Joan and the Three Little Pigs
Peggy and Joan go and meet The Three Little Male Chauvanist Pigs.
It is supposed to be about panty hose but the Three Little Pigs think that they are the Big Bad Wolf. They tell all the jokes that can be told about legs and pairs and on and off. The butt of their jokes is Joan and her physical attributes. Joan is offended by the Three Little Pigs and why not? But she can't huff and puff and blow their house down until she gets in the elevator with Peggy.
And then in true Joan-fashion, Joan Huffs and Puffs and Blows Peggy away. How many scenes like this have we seen on this show? The first time that Joan met Peggy, she pulled the same "I am in the house of Pretty." And it continues.
Let's think about this. Peggy worked hard for what she got. Joan slept her way to the top. Joan is the Brick House that the Wolf can't blow down. Joan is upset that she is Only taken and appreciated (in a gross manner) for her phsical attributes that got her where she is today. And how does Joan resolve her righteous anger? She attacks Peggy and then goes out to celebrate her physical attributes with a shopping trip.
Can't get away from your body issues, can you Joan? What are you going to do when the physical attributes age and droop? Will Joan become a plasticized woman? Plastic surgery will hold her up along with the girdle?
Peggy is mad about Joan and the Three Little Pigs. So Peggy goes on a date to be appreciated for her physical attributes instead of just her mind. And Peggy and her appreciative date decide to go to Paris. Remember when Peggy went on her first business trip to North Carolina? She had never been out of New York before. She got to see two dogs fornicating in the motel parking lot. Was this a reflection on that? Or remember that ad campaign of Peggy's about riding a motorbike in Paris? Peggy wants to bust loose, but dang, where did she put her passport?
Can't go to Paris without a passport. Can't go to Paris at all.
Kenny Isn't Good at Sport Or A Good Sport
You'd think that Kenny would stay away from sports equipment. It is always tripping him up. First, it was the gun shooting and hunting in the wilds of Michigan that lost him his eye. Then it was the set of irons and golf clubs for his father-in-law that lost him his job at McCann, etc.
Why is Kenny an accounts man anyway? Isn't he a published author? Why isn't he on the Creative team?
Kenny sits in the evening and talks with his wife about his life and his prospects. Now is the time to write full time and see what he can do with his creative talent. But Kenny is in the dark and can't see all that well. We look at his ruined eye.
And then we see his new career as the head of advertising man at Dow Chemicals. Now he is in control of the adverising account with McCann. It is all about his Revenge.
Pete was right. Kenny should have written an Hemingway type Adventure tale like The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber.
Little Miss Sunshine
Miss Blankenship was the Astronaut, but Meredith has come into her own as the Sun Maiden. At least, some one has moved on and isn't just repeating the Same Ol' Same Ol'.
Screen Caps by me because no one else had them ready.