Jews Watching Mad Men: A Potch in the Punim

This week, SCDP received a serious potch in the proverbial pumin from their lynchpin, Lucky Strike.  Actually, the potch came last week but Roger was too scared, proud and/or snake-y to tell any of his associates about it and as a result, we got an episode of Mad Men in which we learn what it’s like to be a aboard a sinking ship.  It turns out there actually is a lot of sex.

Let’s re-cap:  Last week’s episode ended with Don, having slithered away clean from what he thought would be his downfall, feeling renewed and lusting for life he subsequently eye-hanky-panky’s his new secretary.  Lets talk about this new secretary, Megan, played by Jesse Pare.  She’s hot, unquestionably hot, a good, if not submissive secretary who’s always willing to take it on chin when things go wrong.  There’s something about those gigantic eyes of hers and those buck teeth, but in this episode we learn that she is also a lit major!  When does the sexiness relent?  So, this episode begins at a distance from where the last one ended.  Don and Faye are still together and seemingly very happy, then immediately there are bigger fish to fry, so questions like, "will he?" or "did he?" are put on the back burner — because the ship is a sinking.  The actual first scene of this episode starts with a yet another casual reference by Peggy to her vagina, which we learn is a bit sandy as she is leaving Joan’s Beach, the car ride home from which puts Peggy on the lap of her super liberal writer friend. Arriving home, they do it, and we the viewers are left feeling like this may be Peggy’s "the one."  She seems to really like this dude.  However, if we are of the opinion that Peggy’s true love is either Pete or Don, this guy is as far from both of them as possible.

Trough, Cosgrove, WASP-douche-extraordinaire, we learn that Lucky Strike is lost.  When a meeting of the partners is called and the news is shared, Roger feigns surprise and even fakes a telephone call to Lee Garner Jr.  Ever faked a telephone call?  Once this guy in a Philadelphia train station tried to get me to give him fifty bucks, saying that his "women" would repay me when we arrived in New York and so he pretended to call one of these "women" and halfway through the phone started making that sound it makes when it’s off the hook for too long and it gave him away, Roger cleverly avoided this by keeping his thumb on the receiver.  

Then, there’s the fallout.  Roger looks and feels like a fool because Lucky was his only responsibility.  Don takes comfort in the arms of Faye and it’s looking like he didn’t sleep with Megan.

"Aww, look at that punim," Faye says.

"Whats that?" Don asks.

"Face."

W-w-wait a second!  Is Doc Faye a big J?  I know what you’re thinking: she’s blonde so it’s unlikely.  But guess what, blonde J’s are not as rare as you might think.  In fact, the words that you are reading right now are being written by a big blonde J!  Plus, Faye kind of carries herself like a sexy, confident, sexually liberated J.  So, I think there is a distinct possibility here. Eventually, Don asks Faye to break the doctor patient confidentiality rule and float him some intel on unhappy clients in order to save the firm, and Faye gets pissed, storming out of his office.

Pete’s wife, played by the beautifully Jewish Allison Brie, is having a baby, slowly.  With all the turmoil he’s facing at work, the incredible stress that Pete is undergoing is played beautiful by Vincent Kartheiser, once of my favorite actors, with the most unpronounceable last name ever.  As this is going on, Ted Chaugh hears that SCDP boat is sinking and tries to steal Campbell by offering to make him partner.  Peggy on the other hand, holds firm to the reigns, trying to steer the ship out of the storm by winning the Playtex account.  Her office-mates assume that she is horny, when in fact she is just sexually satisfied by her new writer boyfriend, when she rejects her art assistant’s advance, he gets revenge by letting her do the presentation with lipstick on her teeth, but Peggy knocks it out of the park anyhow.  Here’s the question.  Throughout the scenes with Pete we wonder whether the baby is actually going to make it.  We wonder whether Pete is going to think his loss of the baby with his wife coupled with his actual conception with Peggy is going to lead him to believe that he and Peggy were meant to be.  In the end, the baby was born and Pete wasn’t there, but there’s no question, writer boyfriend or not, that the spark between Peggy and Pete is strong.

Last episode it was so thrilling to see Roger and Joan rekindling their affair, but this episode it was a whole different picture.  Having lost the glue that holds the firm together, Roger is weirdly unwilling to take responsibility for his lapse, and when he goes to Joanie’s for sympathy sex, she rejects him outright, telling him that their affair is truly over.  Roger, in response simply whines like a baby.  For the last two episodes, we wanted Roger and Joanie back together and now, it just seems wrong.  He’s just too old, which reminds me, where the hell is Kinsey?  Kinsey is one of the few casualties of the Sterling Cooper break that I truly miss, and he and Joan made sense.  I say Bring back the beatnik.

In the end, Don is in the office late at night, burning the oil.  Glo-coat has jumped ship and things are looking grim.  Megan knocks on the door hoping to learn a bit more about what Don does, and that’s when she reveals that she was a lit major and wants to be a copywriter.  She also reveals how badly she wants to get it on with Don.  Which leads us to the important question of this Mad Men episode.

Who would you pick?  Doc Faye or Megan the secretary?

Well, Don, being Don, goes for both, sleeping with Megan in the office and leaving cordially.  "I can’t make any mistakes right now," he tells her pre-coitus and she replies.  "Lets get one thing clear, I’m not going to leave here crying tomorrow.  I just want you right now."  To Don, this is probably the sexiest thing anyone’s ever said.  After sex, it’s all good, both parties satisfied, but when Don leaves the office and arrives home, Faye is there waiting. 

"I didn’t want to do this over the phone," she says.

We assume this means, break up, right?  But no, Doc Faye, being the ride or die girl that she is, did the damn thing and got Don a meeting with Hines.  She didn’t just float him some information, she got the dude a meeting!  As I said, the ship is still sinking, and in turn, people are boning like it’s the end of the world.

For once, I have absolutely no idea or opinion about what’s going to happen next.