Mad Men Episode 9: Wee Small Hours

Betty is having dreams about some dude working her over. Don is suffering from severe insomnia, an issue he acquired so he could better service his looney tunes client. The upside is that he can now more easily bang other womenMore...
Betty cannot get her Italian freedom or Henry the sleezy politico out of her mind. She addresses this by taking on a completely chaste, but completely inappropriate, correspondence with Henry. This is clearly not Henry’s first goat rodeo. He takes the frivolous notes as a queue to happen upon Betty mid day. Third episode ever of this show, Betty was taken down two notches by Draper for allowing an air conditioning sales guy in her house mid day, meanwhile this dude just comes flaunting in, the hell? Sloppy, sloppy Betty. So sloppy that Carla catches them. Henry comes up with a stupid cover story about a fund raising cocktail party and Betty actually follows through on it. This fools Carla not at all. Having said that, it’s still 1963 so Carla knows better than to act like she knows what’s going on. Carla is all manner of awesome with her judging looks. They scream stuff like “Is this white lady serious? Who does she think she’s kidding?” This all comes to a very childish end of course. Henry blows off her fundrairser in an attempt to show Betty who’s boss. Betty, of course, shows up at his office and makes an awful scene, then realizes she is just signing up for another Don but in an older, less attractive body. She politely moves on.

Part of the reason Don is not sleeping is Connie. He making this worse by calling Don in the middle night and insisting on meeting with him. On paper, this is exactly the sort of gayness I have been anticipating between these two for weeks. In practicality, Connie is just a severe narcissist who thinks someone needs to be a witness to every drop of genius that crosses his mind. Don plays along, doing his best to manage his account. Connnie's rambling get Don's creative juices flowing. Connie appreciates the ego boost so much he calls Don his son, more so than his real son. Btw, this exact same thing happened to me. I responsible for client service to this old codger once and his son (on more than one occasion) called him asking him for money in my presence. His son was my age at the time (say 30) so it was really embarrassing. Anyway, all I ever did was help the old timer out. He really appreciated it and took me to a steak dinner when I moved on. He even let me drive his Lexus. He was a really nice guy, much unlike Connie. Anyway, Don builds an above average campaign based on this Connie’s crazy talk. Connie hates it claiming that Don ignored some random comment about the moon and storms out. Don’s cigarette makes a dramatic return and demands that Connie respects his smoldering hot genius, but in a subtle understated way. Don’s cigarette then convinces him that he needs a pick me up to remind himself exactly how awesome and in control he really is.

Cut to Don trolling for chicks in the dead of night. He goes back to the spot where he had previously seen Hot4Teacher jogging (before jogging btw, jogging was a creation of the 70s). Not finding her wandering around he happens upon her at home AND KNOCKS THAT DOWN. Hot4Teacher who, for all her hippy-ness, is just as f****ed up as Don makes a series of meta-comments of just how little Don is thinking this all through. What Hot4Teacher doesn’t know is that Betty has dropped the bar for hiding their issues to an all time low. So low that Don is free to bang the entire town of Ossning at the local Pathmark if he is so inclined. Don almost pleads the line “I want you. Doesn’t that mean anything to someone like you” Note to writers - I find this a little too on the nose. Don is very needy but also needs desperately to hide that (and everything else about him) in a thick shield of cool. So, please a little consistency next time.

The entire Connie withholding affection from Don dynamic is SO GAY that they have draw a parallel between this interaction and Sal’s interaction with Lucky Strike Jr. Sal is a totally awesome commercial director now and Lucky Strike Jr. needs Sal to direct him in some home movies. So much so that he gets a little drunk and FEELS SAL up. Sal feigns heterosexuality, poorly. LS Jr. is so offended he knocks down several more drinks and demands that Harry fire Sal. Harry pulls a chickensh*t move and does nothing, hoping the issue goes away. LS Jr. makes a big scene and storms out drawing the ire from a suddenly under-used Roger who in turn is wasted on a ‘dramatic’ scene with Don. BOO Roger Drama…BOO

Lastly, Carla quietly judges her way through a scene where Betty wonders if the US is just “not ready” for Civil Rights. Carla is now officially shooting both her and Don “you white people are just stupid” looks. This is going somewhere. Pumped about it.