Mad Men 4x04

Mad Men, the most amazing show on television at the moment, is delving deep into relationships of various kinds. Don’s secretary, Allison, is disturbed by his callous attitude about their one-night-stand. She breaks down during a focus group meeting about Pond’s facial cream when the conversation steers toward marriage. She later tells Don she is quitting and throws a paperweight at him when he agrees to sign a letter of recommendation if she writes it for him. He cannot even show her enough respect to write the letter himself. “You are not a good person,” she responds. When he comes home drunk (as usual), Don starts to write an apology letter. He tries to explain his life is in a mess, but he cannot even finish the sentence. The main reason Pete Campbell is working at the firm is because he was able to bring in the Clearsil account through his father-in-law. Now he is told they have to drop the account due to a conflict with Pond’s – and Pond’s brings in more money. Right at the moment he wants to inform his father-in-law, he blurts out that Trudy (Pete’s wife) is pregnant. The next evening at home, Pete demands that his father-in-law gives him the entire Vicks account, or otherwise the firm will have to drop Clearasil. He breaks the good news at the office next day, receiving congratulations from all, before taking his father-in-law out for lunch.

Meanwhile, Peggy meets an assistant photo editor at Life, Joyce, in the elevator. She shows Peggy some rejected nude photography that intrigues Peggy. Later Joyce invites her to a party downtown that the photographer is throwing. There’s lots of drinks and weed, and that delicious Joyce flirts with Peggy talking about vaginas. Peggy gets berated for being merely a copywriter, and the photographer is insulted she invites him to work for the firm. “Art in advertising?” the photographer exclaims, “Why would anyone do that after Warhol?” Then the police raid the party and Peggy hides in a closet with one of the writers. They kiss before Joyce calls them to flee down the fire escape. It is fascinating to see Don clash with Faye Miller, their market research consultant, about the validity of focus groups and psychoanalysis. “You stick your finger in people's brains, and they just start talking,” he chides her. Don brags that people won’t understand a new idea until he shows it to them. In other words, people won’t know what they need until advertising tells them to. They are both manipulators of consumer behavior, but he’s in for radical new ideas while she opts for the conventional. Then there’s a casual reference to race riots in Harlem and the death of Malcolm X (Feb. ’65). The countercultural revolution is about to burst at the seams!