This week's episode broke up some outstanding office drama with another terrible trip to California, reminding me how much I hate it when the characters leave the office.
Joan (Hendricks) made a bold move this week. We'll have to wait and see what sort of consequences it wields, though. It seems that the Mad Men writers may be up to their old tricks again if this week's episode, "A Tale of Two Cities," is any indication. Rather than constantly deliver concrete scenes which lead to themes that people can actually understand, this week's episode broke up some outstanding office drama with another terrible trip to California, reminding me how much I hate it when the characters leave the office. When things focused on the business that the show was once entirely about, though, this episode was another great entry in the series. Let's jump right in.
Politics played a big role in this week's episode, which started off with Don and Megan (Jon Hamm and Jessica Paré) watching the 1972 Democratic National Convention on television. More specifically, the split among political lines was a big theme in the episode, starting with minor disagreement between Don and Megan and extending to an outright argument between Ginsberg (Ben Feldman) and Jim Cutler (Harry Hamlin). Even those who seemed to fall on the same side of the debate argued, as we saw when Roger (John Slattery) almost unintentionally botched a meeting with Carnation. I could go either way with how the show handles politics, but they are at their best when things are delivered like they were in this episode: in a matter of fact way that doesn't force anything down your throat.
The argument between Ginsberg and Cutler ignited a series of conversations between the CGC executives about how they are being treated in the merge, starting with the naming of the company. This almost escalated into a full-on coup if it wasn't for Ted (Kevin Rahm), who managed to keep a cool head despite everything that was going on around him. The only thing that came of Cutler's unhappiness was a little more screen time for Bob Benson (James Wolk), who was put in charge of a Manischewitz involving a very much confused Ginsberg. I'm still not entirely sure what Bob's purpose is on the show, but at the end of this episode he seemed like another strange accounts man, and nothing more.
At the same time as this near uprising, Joan (Christina Hendricks) was pulling off her own little upset. It isn't surprising that Joan has grown into a much more confident, but insecure person as her title within the company has expanded. She knows that she can do more than what she's asked to, but she isn't happy just knowing that; she has to prove it instead.This could possibly land the company an account with Avon, or it could cost her her job if the account doesn't come through. Needless to say, Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) was not thrilled when he learned he was forced out of the talks by Joan, effectively rendering his position useless as it relates to Avon. Pete has spent a lot of these last few episodes trying to justify his value to the company, and he was dealt another serious blow by Joan. I don't think his job is at risk at all, but I also don't think he realizes that, which may cause him to overcompensate his way right out of the office by the end of the season.
And then we have the big trip to California, or as I like to call it: the momentum killer. It's almost become a rule that each season of the show has to feature a trip to the West Coast since the first time they traveled there, and very rarely have these episodes struck any sort of chord with me. It almost always turns into some sort of drug-induced hallucination of an episode, aspiring to some sort of abstract delivery but falling way short of any kind of success. This episode was about par for the course in that regard, with the exception of Don almost drowning himself in the pool, which adds some tangible consequences to what went on out there. In the end, though, the characters were back about as quickly as they left, making the trip feel even more like a diversion. I just wish these trips, and the majority of the drug-related arcs, would stop.
That trip was the only bad part of an otherwise great episode of Mad Men, though, so it isn't worth it to focus only on that part. There were some interesting developments that I once again hope carry over into the next three episodes, but so far this season has shown quite the resistance towards carrying over storylines, aside from some of the major ones. For now, I'm interested to see what happens to Joan, and if this new SC&P can stay together through the finale, or if it all fall apart before then.