Mad Men : Season 3 Episode 4 - The Arrangements

This week the guys and gals of Mad Men decide to direct their existential angst towards the their respective relationships with their parents and, where applicable, their children.

We also get some hilarity with the JV squad and Jai Alai - "the sport of the future".
More...Papa Gene loves his grand kids, in particular his grand daughter. So much so in fact that he lets her drive the car. AWESOME! Unfortunately, they don't get into the car accident I predicted. Silly xTian, an ER scene is too over the top for this show. Scenes like that would just cost us important Draper drinking and smoking time.

Of course, Papa Gene is also keenly aware that he is losing it and decides to dump all his old people end of life planning on Betty - she takes it about as well as one would expect - as in not well at all. He takes the opportunity to call her a whimp, lament that he raised such weak children and goof on Betty about being with Don (what's wrong with Don? You take that back, you crotchety old coot!). He insists that he will not make that same mistake twice - which is why little Sally is driving a car and being encouraged to be whatever she wants in life; in pointed contrast to her mother, who sucks, just in case we did not know.

Papa Gene also remembers he has a grandson for 30 seconds and bequeaths to Bobby a helmet he took off a German Soldier he killed during the Great War (the first one natch, not the pansy ass second one that Don was involved in).

All this annoys Draper to no end. His cigarette smoke tells us what he's thinking - "I wish this old coot would go away and stop sneaking ice cream to my daughter and stop talking about how awesome shooting people is to my kid. Of course, if this old coot dies then my wife will be in hysterics for a month and I'll be left to tend to these mouth breathers all to myself, unless the black maid shows up again. What is Carla's schedule again? Does she only show up when we need to cover some casual racism in a plot line or someone to give Betty some lip?". (I think I got the cigarette monologue transcribed exactly. Let me know if I missed anything)

Of course the old coot dies and everyone acts exactly as they should - Bills shows up and contributes nothing, Betty acts dramatically put out by the whole thing and little Sally puts everyone in their place. This one scene telling us a lot - as Don basically looks Sally's way while his cigarette smoke explains that Sally "just needs to put up with her dingbat mother for a bit while she 'grieves' but of course Sally is right and Don is on her side". The cigarette smoke sure was chatty this week.

Don is way more comfortable at work, where he teaches his work children (Sal and Peggy) in his ongoing lecture series Inventing a perfect fiction of a personal life while being awesome at the advertising game. This week, Sal gets to direct a sexy young thing in a commercial in the least heterosexual way possible. Even his dim bulb wife, who I volunteer to f*ck btw, needed a fire extinguisher to get through her scene with him. The commercial is a disaster but Sal is a hit. Peggy is proved right about the "Bye Bye Birdie" thing not working on diet cola, as Don's look and his cigarette smoke explain. Peggy also decides to move to the CITY to complete her Draperesque transformation into the perfect person from nowhere (Casual aside - It is completely inobvious to people that I from NJ, this was not true 15 years ago. In fact people have no idea where I am from. This is exactly how I want it.). After some goofing from the boys, Joan helps her put out an ad that is likely to attract hot, trampy broads! One shows up! WOW! I can't wait till Draper shows this girl the Pitino at the Oak Room.

The comedy stylings of Peter Campbell never stop. This week he shows up with the dumbest, richest frat brother ever imagined for TV. Horace (Ho-Ho for short) thinks that Jai Alai is the wave of the future and has a big boy crush on someone named Pachi. He shows up to SterlingCooper demanding to turn over a bag of money in exchange for a high flying marketing plan that will overtake baseball. Pryce jumps at the chance and Draper gets to deliver the line of the night in the strangest reprimand I have ever seen anyone give their boss "I once saw a loaf of bread fall off a truck during the depression. That was more dignified than this". In the end they turn to Ho-Ho's dad who basically echoes the same sentiment Papa Gene had about betty earlier in the episode before telling Bert, Draper and Co that its time for his kid to learn a hard lesson as he laments his quiet failure as father.

Draper of course, has no time for such sentiment and the episode ends with his daughter reading "The Rise and Fall of The Roman Empire" and he putting all this father figure nonsense (and Gene's cot) away. The End.

I have not been rating these episodes but I think this is second strongest this season after the premiere. I generally agree with Sparks' criticism that the episode last week was plodding and am still wondering what the f the grass was about in episode 2.

Note: Just in case you are wondering why Jai Alai never took off in this country, Bill Simmons of ESPN tweeted some reading material on the subject. That link is here.