Mad Men 410: “Hands and Knees” Part 1 – Joan and Roger

We’re going to try an experiment. Mad Men, after all, is like a cocktail: you swirl it around in your glass to study the elements, and it’s best taken in small sips. We’ll come back to Don and the G-men. First, I want to start with Joan and Roger.

I had to kick myself for not seeing it coming. Joan wants to start a family, Greg is in ‘Nam. You hook up with your ex in a dark alley and it’s bound to happen. Far more disappointing was Roger’s reaction to the news. Let’s revisit this exchange:

R:  What if this is a sign? I haven’t stopped thinking of you. Maybe I’m in love with you.

J:  [Swallows] So you want to keep it?

R:  No, of course not. If there’s going to be something between us I don’t want it to start out this way, with a scandal. Do you?

J:  I see.

R:  I guess you could keep it . . . It wouldn’t be my child. Let’s make that clear. I mean, if [Greg] comes home . . . I’m just trying to think of what’s best for you.

Joan’s pulse seems to race for a moment with “So you want to keep it?” She swallows, she stamps out her cigarette — she’s holding her breath. It’s clearly a loaded question, but throughout this exchange Roger fails to read her reaction. He is talking aloud to himself, figuring out what is best for him, even after the doctor excoriated his selfishness. He was willing to cause a public scandal for Jane, but not for Joan, who is carrying his child. If she kept the baby, he wouldn’t acknowledge it as his own (and entitle the child to the Sterling fortune). Maybe it would all be better if Greg just died in Vietnam. (It would, but that’s beside the point.)

Joan wants Roger to tell her to keep the baby, scandal be damned, but she quickly realizes he is too weak to do that. So she tells him what he wants to hear — that she’ll take care of it, quickly and efficiently as is her way, painlessly for him. She doesn’t even want him to come.

But even though Joan talks a good game to Roger the next morning, I don’t think there is any way in hell she went through with that abortion. In season 2 when Betty gets pregnant with Gene after a similar fling with Don and goes to her doctor, she is told it’s “a solution for young girls,” not married women with husbands to provide for them. We see that attitude in action while Joan sits in the waiting room. The woman quietly weeping (Susan May Pratt, of rom-com BFF fame) is waiting for her 17 year-old daughter. She asks Joan how old her daughter is. Joan replies, “fifteen,” too embarrassed to admit the abortion is for herself.

By my figuring, Joan is supposed to be 33 or 35. Let’s not forget she has had two abortions already, presumably before she met either Roger or Greg — when she was a young girl.  At the beginning of this season, she was planning to have a family. According to the artistic rule of three, this will be the one to keep, the pregnancy that is going to be different. The woman’s question is yet another reminder that Joan’s life isn’t turning out how she had planned. She was supposed to be married to a wealthy surgeon and living in the country by now. Instead, she has become a career secretary, supporting her husband and delaying starting a family. At one point does she step up and seize back control of her life?

Joan seems to be turning all this over in her mind as she stares out the window on the train ride home. The next morning, Roger says he tried calling her all night, but she didn’t pick up the phone. (And he’s right that she looks remarkably well for having had the procedure.) Joan appears to be strengthening her resolve for the road ahead. And let’s not forget, babies (especially illegitimate ones) are a lot more cinematic than abortions. Just look at Peggy and Pete.

I’m not sure what Joan’s plan is at this point — try to convince Greg the baby is his if he comes back, raise the child herself if he doesn’t? Joan may have assured Roger they avoided “a tragedy,” but viewers want to see that train wreck in all its sordid glory. Something tells me Mad Men won’t deny them. I’m so certain I might even bet money on it — for that spiffy new Dyna Moe book.

Maddict alert!

All you fans of the Mad Men Yourself application on AMC’s website, listen up! Creator Dyna Moe, the whiz behind three seasons’ worth of amazing illustrations on Flickr, is releasing a book next week! Mad Men: The Illustrated World comes out October 6. It is the first official Mad Men publication and will be for sale at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Urban Outfitters. . . It looks to be $15 full price. Pretty spiffy for what Moe is reporting as 85% new material.

I know what I’m getting for Christmas!

Mad Men 409: “The Beautiful Girls”

It’s almost a cliché by now, but I’ll say it anyway: Mad Men’s secret weapon is its women. This episode juxtaposed a maturing Sally against every major female character except Betty, offering her and the audience a glimpse of the limited buffet of alternatives available for her future — and in the case of Miss Blankenship, the final outcome of that choice.

Miss Blankenship - After weeks of suffering snickering colleagues who wonder when Don will get rid of her, the least glamorous secretary at SCDP pulls the ultimate disappearing act. To Bert Cooper she was an astronaut, but to Roger, Peggy, and the other secretaries she was a workhorse who died in her traces, without a spouse or child to come collect her body. The resulting hilarity of the cover-up for the clients momentarily obscures the pathos, but again Bert speaks the truth: “This is an insult to her.” Having died as she lived, “surrounded by the people she answered phones for,” as Roger delicately puts it, Miss Blankenship (Randee Heller of Karate Kid fame) is denied the dignity of a proper passing. Having outlived her attractiveness and usefulness, she passes through SCDP’s doors for the last time.

Joan - How fitting that Joan is the only one who can write Miss Blankenship’s obituary. Like the death of Marilyn Monroe in season one, Miss Blankenship’s abrupt death strikes a chord because Joan sees her own future in the older woman’s end. Already reminded of her gradual aging and waning attractiveness in the previous episode, Joan shows Miss Blankenship the respect she would want shown to herself, elevating Miss B’s profession to ”Executive Secretary” in the obit. Joan refuses to let the record show that this woman ended where she started.

So how does this magnificent redhead succumb to Roger Sterling after weeks — nay, years — of rebuffing his advances? Already shaken by Greg’s departure to Vietnam, Miss B’s death wears down Joan’s defenses until she finally agrees to dinner with Roger. Back at one of their old haunts, there is further evidence of time passing — all the patrons are older, though Roger assures Joan the two of them are exempt. As late as strawberry cheesecake, Joan fends off Roger’s “pestering.” But when they are mugged while walking through their old neighborhood and Joan symbolically loses her wedding ring, it produces a dual effect. With the second-near death moment of the day, on top of incontrovertible proof of time slipping by, it’s carpe diem, baby, and before we know it they’re backed into a stairwell. But equally important is that for the first time in a long while, Joan sees Roger in an assertive, traditionally male protector role. He takes charge — a departure from the little boy/indulgent mother dynamic  that rules their relationship. With so many loads to carry, Joan can depend this one time on Roger. He immediately becomes more attractive in her eyes.

Now that the deed has been done, the tension turns on whether Joan’s fidelity to Greg will win out. “I’m not sorry, but I’m married. And so are you,” she tells Roger. Will the writers offer these characters an out, or force them to make the tough decisions?

Faye - Though I’ve never liked Faye, I did feel for her this episode. Forced by Don to play babysitter and psychologist to Sally, this polished career gal comes undone when her fake, bright focus-group demeanor fails to overcome Sally’s preteen attitude. For the first time, Faye’s childlessness comes across as a liability, especially when contrasted with Megan’s instinctive warmth. Despite Don’s assurance that it doesn’t matter, his last relationship was with a woman (Suzanne Farrell) who enjoyed children. Faye is smart, accomplished, and enjoys a roll in the hay as much as Don — but somehow I doubt that will be enough to keep her around for long. Perhaps the emergence of Faye’s two-bit gangster father will force Don to call it quits?

Megan - The lovely Megan (Québecoise Jessica Paré,  Matt Long‘s castmate from Jack & Bobby) is the only woman in the office Sally seems to trust, probably because Megan speaks to her without Faye’s fake cheeriness. The girl who observed two episodes ago that Peggy was doing all right for herself is here promoted to Don’s desk. On the surface she seems to share a lot with Allison — a pretty face, a pleasant disposition, a competent attitude — but I doubt Don will make the same mistake twice. Could Megan be the gal to stop the musical chairs among Don’s secretaries?

Peggy – For four seasons, we’ve seen Peggy’s myopic obsession with work cost her the pleasures of a conventional relationship. Here, we saw a new angle — a determined unconcern for social justice issues, which shocks and alienates Abe Drexler (an adorable Charlie Hofheimer, who apparently had a brief stint on Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? in the mid 90s). Where Abe sees evil corporations, she sees a business opportunity. (Peggy didn’t vote for Goldwater, but running his campaign would have been “fantastic.”) But to her credit, it doesn’t last long. Peggy’s innate sense of moral responsibility, and her attraction to Abe, drive her to check out his story about Fillmore Auto Parts’ shaky relationship with blacks. She seems genuinely troubled to discover Fillmore’s racism and her colleagues’ passivity in the face of it. I think Abe was onto something when he noted being misled by Peggy’s earnestness. She seems too intelligent and sensitive to tolerate hypocrisy for long, even though it has taken her a while to open her eyes. If she and Abe can keep from offending each other (and he can overcome his own chauvinism about women), they could have a lot to teach each other. I suspect Abe is the guy we’ve been waiting for.

Sally – Did anyone else hear in Sally’s carefree “Oh Daddy, I do it all the time” a premonition of so many future transgressions? Sally is growing up, making French toast and navigating the subway on her own, but in Don’s mind she remains the same little girl as when he moved out. Don turns his powers of denial on his daughter when she begins asking about Faye, and he is impressed and bemused when she sees through it: “She knew you had peanut butter.” Desperate for her father’s attention, she seems captivated by the women (Faye, Phoebe the babysitter) who command it with their attractiveness. With the sexual revolution underway, Sally’s daddy issues and budding maturity seem like the perfect storm for sexual acting out — which we already saw the seeds of in “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.”