Mad Men 4x02

Freddy Rumsen is back! Not only has he been clean and sober for half a year, he’s bringing the $2 million Pond’s Cold Cream account. His only request is that Pete Campbell cannot get near the account. Soon Freddy argues with Peggy over the creative direction of the Pond’s advertisement. Pond’s wants to use an older celebrity, but she suggests Elizabeth Taylor, as young women don’t respond to beauty advice from older women. It is Christmastime, 1964, Don has his secretary buy presents for his children, and the office is all a-bustle with excitement. Even at his apartment his flirty neighbor is busy preparing early in the morning for a party. Lee Garner Jr. of Lucky Strikes has invited himself to the party at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. And so, despite the firm’s dire financial situation, Roger asks Joan to turn the party into a “Roman orgy.” Back at Don’s apartment that night, his neighbor Phoebe is already cleaning up after her party and has to let him in as he’s too drunk himself. He tries flirting with her, but she tells him to be a good boy. The big office party is the next day. Lee Garner pressures Roger to put on the Santa suit, and he reluctantly agrees to please their most important client. Santa hands out cartons of Lucky Strikes to everyone, but gives a Polaroid camera to Lee. After the party, Don arrives home drunk again, without his keys. He calls his secretary, Allison, who finds and brings them. “My goodness,” she giggles after they have sex. She’s all smiles the next day at the office, but Don’s stiff demeanor sobers her up. While I sympathize with Don, he’s starting to lose his charm and becoming pathetic.

Meanwhile, that creepy kid Glen (who once had a crush on Betty), has been trying to bond with Sally over their shared experience of their parents’ divorce. To encourage Betty and Henry to move out of Don’s house, Glen breaks in with a friend and empties the fridge all over the kitchen. I’m not sure what to make of Glen’s reappearance. It seems a little contrived. Is Glen going to be Sally’s love interest? (Parenthetically, Glen is played by Marten Weiner, the son of the show’s creator Matthew Weiner.) Then there is the situation with Peggy and her boyfriend Mark. He begs her for sex. “I want to be your first,” he says. So she hasn’t told him yet she slept with Pete Campbell and Duck Philips before. He talks some nonsense about Swedes making love right away. She asks him to leave. At the office, Freddy notices she’s testy about marriage. He advices her to hold off sex, if she wants to marry Mark, but not to lead him on. Afterwards, she goes to bed with Mark. “Do you feel different,” he asks. She doesn’t even answer. I don’t know what to make of Peggy and Mark either. For now their relation is hanging in the air like an afterthought. I do not know this Mark, and thus want better for Peggy, for she deserves the best. Maybe Duck Philips wasn’t so bad after all. There was also an interesting discussion about the dangers of Medicare, entirely appropriate for the present day: “They won’t stop until they ban personal property.” Hilarious! As always, it’s the characters that make this show so enjoyable, and by now we’ve gotten to know them so well, that scenes barely have to explain anything. A gesture or glance can be enough to remind us of some previous episode. Brilliant!