We’ve had two episodes of Mad Men that focused on characters separately, and the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce business as a whole, but last night’s episode, “The Good News,” focused on relationships. I love when it does that.
When I saw the episode title I wasn’t sure whether it would be a Christian reference, an indication that after all the bad news we’ve seen in the first two episodes there would FINALLY be some good news, or, that since good news always seems to go hand in hand with bad news, that we’d be treated to even more. Turns out it’s all three, although there is very little good news in this episode.
In fact, WAS there any good news on last night’s episode? Other than Lane discovering that even though Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce suffered a few setbacks, they had a magnificent first year? (That IS good news, after all. A good way to ring in 1965.)
And yet I think it’s ultimately going to find its way into my top five favorite episodes; solidly plotted and well paced, full of character development, achieving the right sort of balance between heavy sorrowfulness and levity. And it focused on the two characters I wanted to see more of from the beginning of the season: Joan and Lane.
I LOVED their scenes together. Joan’s seductive fried chicken offer and Lane’s rather classic-Hugh-Grant-esque replies were hilarious:
Joan: …fried chicken. Interested?
Lane: [slightly bumbly] I am!
Joan: Breast or thigh?
Lane: [more bumbly] One of each?
Joan’s face: Uh-huh. KNEW IT.
And I loved Lane’s stress-enhanced blow-up at Joan after realizing that she was just bribing him for vacation time: “I understand that all men are dizzy and powerless to refuse you, but consider me the incorruptible exception. Fried chicken, indeed.”
But then this leads to a huge WHOOPS — what we find out later is that Lane is currently embroiled in a major argument with his wife, who we know from the previous season vigorously HATES New York and has taken their child back to London to spend the rest of the holidays. Lane tries to send apology roses to both his wife and to Joan, and actually does compose appropriate notes to each of them, but the deliveries are bungled and Joan receives the roses intended for Mrs. Pryce (I sincerely hope that Joan wasn’t supposed to get red roses, but an arrangement appropriate for a work relationship). The scene that follows, with both Joan and Lane giving Lane’s secretary (sorry, ex-secretary) a thorough and harsh dressing-down (in which Joan gets mad props for using “egregious,” one of my favorite words), is beautifully executed. I remember thinking that Joan and Don together (not romantically, necessarily) would be a force to be reckoned with, and now I think the same of Joan and Lane (not romantically, necessarily).
Which means that Mrs. Pryce received flowers with a note that simply read, “Joan, forgive me,” and (we assume) jumps to the natural conclusion that Lane is cheating on her (how AMERICAN) and tells him she’s not coming back to New York. “Ever?” is the hanging question, as Lane is now in matrimonial limbo and turns to Don for insight and advice. And seriously, if I have to add “Oh, Lane” to my repertoire which already includes several variations on “Oh, Don,” “Oh, Roger,” and “Oh, Peggy,” I’m going to run out of room for anything else.
But I get it. I get why Lane would turn to Don, partly because all the married men think Don has THE LIFE, and in part because he’ll need a Sherpa if his marriage is truly ending. And I thoroughly enjoyed watching their scenes together, more than I enjoyed watching Lane and Joan, and possibly — possibly — more than I’ve enjoyed watching Don and Roger. They play off each other beautifully, though arguably both Jon Hamm and Jared Harris play off everyone else equally as beautifully. Every bit of dialogue between them was priceless. I laughed at the two of them yelling at each other across the office (Lane + Don = my grandparents. They’d hold entire conversations at the top of their lungs from different rooms of the house); laughed when Lane brought the bottle of MacCutcheon (prove to me it wasn’t) with him in answering Don’s call; laughed at the tiny throwaway exchange when Don’s pouring more MacCutcheon on the floor than in the flask and apologizes by way of quoting Anna: “We’ll have to smoke the dress,” and Lane responds, “I don’t know what that means”;
and I don’t think I’ve laughed harder at anything on this show than at the two of them watching the Gamera movie (full disclosure: didn’t realize it was Gamera, shameful when you consider how much MST3K I’ve watched in my lifetime. Appropriately, it was TV’s Frank who pointed out that it was, indeed, Gamera). That they’re at the Gamera movie after Umbrellas of Cherbourg is floated as an option made me roar with laughter in the first place, and I cannot say enough about Jared Harris’ delivery on “This movie’s very good!” All of it. Loved it. Honestly, it was such a nice distraction from all the depressing things that happen on the show.
Most depressing: Anna Draper has cancer. And I honestly don’t know — hopefully one of you does — whether it was common or at least not unheard of in 1964 for doctors to not disclose a patient’s condition to that patient. I can understand it if the patient were a minor, but I think it’s unconscionable for Anna’s sister to withhold the information from her. She’s not an idiot, and she’s certainly capable of dealing with the news — nothing suggests otherwise.
The minute Harry said he knew Don had a layover in LA I hoped that Don would be going to visit Anna. And the shot of Don driving down the PCH in a red convertible had me thinking, “Finally, he looks relaxed.” And yes, he skeeved me out by putting the moves on Anna’s niece Stephanie, particularly as earlier he’d told her that he remembered her as a child (like, Sally’s age now), but for the most part he’s a completely different person with Anna, in California. And this element of the episode had me choked up more than once — when Don carries Anna to bed was one such moment; when she tells him, “I know everything about you, and I still love you,” was another. Anna is Don’s “Shelter From the Storm,” and for that to be taken away from him . . . Don signing the wall “Dick + Anna 1964″ just killed me, after all that.
I feel as though this post has shortchanged Joan, but her part of this episode answered a number of questions: While I’m still not clear on what her job title and responsibilities are (if she has someone to clear up messes and file paperwork, why is she the one picking pencils out of the ceiling? [even though, I have to say: hee!]), Greg is still in New York, as far as I know he hasn’t started basic training (which would be in San Antonio, right?), and doesn’t even know when it will start, nor does he know whether he’ll be sent to Vietnam (but of course he will be). All this makes it difficult for them to plan for a family, and clearly Joan is upset by this much uncertainty — interesting that both Joan and Lane are feeling domestic pressures which find their outlets at the office. I wonder whether Joan would’ve fired Lane’s secretary for the flower mixup had her private life been running smoothly (especially since Lois, the secretary who RAN OVER SOMEONE’S FOOT, somehow managed to keep her job — that has ALWAYS bothered me).
I thought the scene between Joan and Greg on New Year’s Eve was great. Loved that Joan decides that they’ll simply ring in the new year on Hawaii time, and has provided a themed table for them. And when she slices open her finger, I thought it was interesting that she was so reluctant to have Greg stitch it up. As though she didn’t trust him, the former surgeon with no brains in his fingers. When she breaks down and starts crying, it’s clear that everything’s hitting her at once; this is her breaking point. And I’ll be damned if Greg’s “I can’t fix everything, but I can fix this,” didn’t garner an “awww” from me. Dammit, Greg. That was absolutely the right thing to say and now I hate you just a little less.
Other stuff:
* Very little Peggy in this episode, which is OK every once in a while I suppose, but what we did see of her showed that even though she’s got more professional confidence, she’s still totally awkward and tense around Joan.
* There was a nice callback to last week’s episode when Don asked Lane whether flying to London to reconcile with his wife is “what you want, or what people expect of you.”
* I chuckled when the nightclub singer launched into “House of the Rising Sun” and Don’s all “We’re outta here.” More than I chuckled at the entire opening comedic act, but I think his unfunniness was intentional. I grudgingly like that Don’s “special lady friend” is the prostitute from the first episode, and that they seem to have a — what’s the word, friendly? sort of respectful? — relationship that goes beyond the light S&M he pays for.
* I’d rather not mention Lane’s steak-on-the-crotch shenanigans; however: props to the sound editors who cut in the nightclub applause a bit early so that it almost seems like the other restaurant patrons are applauding Lane’s vulgarity. (Oh, Lane.)
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