Another Mad Men Semi-Recap

A couple of years ago, I promised not to do a weekly recap of Mad Men, the show about an advertising agency in the ‘60’s. In the fall of 2009, I filled Humor Me with a weekly recap of Mad Men. I thought it was brilliant, worthy of much praise and money. Nobody ever said a thing about it. Then in 2010, I did a weekly recap of 24 and my readers seemed to enjoy it. This taught me one lesson: if you are going to do a weekly recap of a television show, make it a show people watch.

Season 5 of Mad Men premiered the other night after a 17 month hiatus. The reason for the lay off is difficult to understand, except I’m under the strong impression it had to do with money and lots of it.

But I’m happy to say that, so far, everybody in Mad Men is still smoking (indoors!) and drinking at work. Everybody has a couch in their office. I’m not sure what actually gets done at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce, Nixon, and Agnew. Everyone shows up around 9:00, takes a coffee break at 9:30, has a nervous breakdown at 10:00, goes to lunch at 10:30, comes back to take a nap on the couch at 1:30, has a meeting with a client about at 3:30, and has sex with whoever walks by at 4:30. Then it is out the door at 5:00.

The main character is Don Draper, who is sexy on a stick. He has a super power that causes women to take off their clothes. You can’t list all of the women that he had his way with - it is simpler to list the women he hadn’t (Lady Bird Johnson).

Well, during the past couple of seasons, Don’s marriage to Betty has slowly disintegrated despite the fact that he was only sleeping with various beatnik chicks, agents, school teachers, psychologists and secretaries. Oh yeah, Don Draper, isn’t Don Draper. He is really Dick Whitman and comes from a real white trash background.

Given these circumstances, it would be easy to sympathize with Betty Draper. One problem: Betty is clinically insane, in a bad way. She is also a terrible parent. Her parenting skills of Sally (you will see her at Studio 54 in 1977), Bobby and Baby Gene would rank somewhere between Adolph Hitler (on a good day) and Charles Manson (on a bad day).

This episode helped you catch up with the characters. Don married a leggy French-Canadian named Megan that happened to be one of his old secretaries (or agent/client/psychologist, there's been so many I get confused). They have moved into this swinging Manhattan apartment that looks like Artie Johnson and Ruth Buzzi are going to show up and start asking people to sock it to them.

Megan throws Don as surprise birthday party. Don hates surprises, unless it involves women’s clothes suddenly flying off. Megan sings this song to Don called “Zou Bisou Bisou” ( English translation: You are a Bisou, Bisou). Betty would have never done this for Don. She would have thrown a party and then stomp off mad because Don is in the closet making out with a neighbor that’s a Kennedy supporter.

There are other stories going on. Joan, who put the VA in the VA-VA-VOOM, had Roger Sterling’s baby. The baby has white hair and smokes cigarettes. Peggy, our plucky sweet Catholic girl that had the slimy Pete Campbell’s baby in season one, has her pumpkin feelings hurt when a client doesn’t like her idea of ballet dancing beans. Some people.

Lane Pryce, the agency’s CFO finds a wallet with a girl’s picture in it. This takes up a lot of time for no apparent reason except to prove that Lane is a perv. Speaking of pervs: Harry, the agency’s Media man, says something about Megan (who is still working at the agency) that is not politically correct,even by 1966 standards. Pete Campbell is trying his best to morph into a 60’s version of Major Frank Burns.

Meanwhile, Megan and Don have a spat about the party. She goes home. He follows. It turns out that she cleans house in her underwear. This would only happen to Don Draper. Despite her instructions of “don’t look at me” they soon make passionate basic cable love. All is well in Draper World. Don’t worry - it won’t last.