MAD MEN 3.4 - "The Arrangements"

WRITERS: Andrew Colville & Matthew Weiner
DIRECTOR: Michael Uppendahl
GUEST CAST: Ryan Cutrona, Eric Ladin, Alexa Alemanni, Ryan Cartwright, Sarah Drew, Crista Flanagan, Carla Gallo, Megan Henning, Daniel Kountz, Kelsey Sanders, Myra Turley & Audrey Wasilewski

[SPOILERS] After last week's intriguing but halfhearted episode, "The Arrangements" was far stronger mix of classic Mad Men intrigues -- office comedy with upwardly mobile Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), family drama with ailing Gene (Ryan Cutrona), a few new advertising campaigns to chew on, and subtle character progression with Sal's (Bryan Batt) marriage/career, with most storylines tied together by the theme of parental responsibility and how it influences what children grow up to become...

I've really been enjoying Gene's storyline at the Draper household, mainly because Ryan Cutrona's wonderful as the loving grandfather who's slowly losing his marbles. In this episode, aware his days are numbered, he spends time with his two grandchildren -- teaching Sally (Kiernan Shipka) how to drive, in a very amusing and rather alarming sequence, and showing Bobby (Jared S. Gilmore) his prized yet ghoulish collection of war mementos, including the helmet of a Prussian soldier he shot dead in the line of duty. While his grandkids lap up their Gene's advice and beguiling anecdotes, his own daughter Betty (January Jones) isn't quite so responsive to her dad's pragmatic attitude, particularly when he starts planning his own funeral and informing her of his Last Will & Testament. While understandable that Betty would prefer to avoid discussing the inevitable, morbid truth of what's going to happen, it's perhaps another sign of Betty's immaturity.

At Sterling Cooper, Pete (Vincent Karthesier) is smacking his lips over the prospect of milking a naïve ex-college pal dry of his family riches. Horace Cook Jr (Aaron Stanford) has a desire to turn obscure sport jai alai into America's favourite pastime (the new baseball, if you will), and intends to spend millions making his pipedream a reality. Don's (Jon Hamm) not comfortable with taking misguided Horace's money by exploiting his naivety, clearly having a more even ethical barometer than Pete, perhaps because he knows Horace's fat cat father is a friend of their company's co-founder Cooper (Robert Morse). Interestingly, it turns out that Horace's father is happy for his boy to make a costly business mistake, as it's the only way he'll learn, but at a dinner to discuss the campaign Don still takes the opportunity to give Horace a sobering reality check -- although the fantasist mistakes Don's advice as a cunning sales technique.

Meanwhile, Peggy was determined to move out of her family home and into vibrant Manhattan, having calculated that her two-hours of daily commuting equates to a week of extra work per month. However, her own dream of flying the nest relies on getting a roommate to split the bills with, prompting her to advertise for a "roomie" on the staff notice-board -- a terrible mistake, as this only encourages Paul (Michael Gladis), Harry (Rich Somner), and Ken (X) to enlist Lois (Crista Flanagan) in making a prank call as a hellish applicant who works with animal carcasses and has a scarred face. It was actually quite refreshing to get some pure, simply laughs into Mad Men, as the show can sometimes become mildly suffocating in its austerity.

There was also a lovely scene between Peggy and Joan (Christina Hendricks), who gave Peggy some tips on how to make her dry advert appear more enticing to readers (quite why copywriter Peggy suddenly looked incapable of advertising herself was a little strange to me), and it's not long before Peggy's rewritten ad attracted a fun-loving travel agency worker called Karen Ericson (Carnivale's Carla Gallo, whose face somehow fits period TV like a glove), who rather amusingly is a polar opposite to Peggy but believes they're peas from the same pod. It should be fun to see if Peggy manages to mix well with Carla (and her circle of friends, perhaps), as she "branches out" from Sterling Cooper socially and becomes a footloose city gal. And that's something her bossy mother isn't happy about, already convince she'll just get raped!

We got some excellent progression for Sal, who was given the opportunity to direct the Patio diet cola commercial based on the opening of "Bye Bye Birdie", and spent the evening before fretting over the possibility he'll make a fool of himself. Sal's aware that trends are moving towards photography and film, so he needs to make the career jump from illustrating into those fields. In one of the most memorable scenes of the episode, Sal eagerly acts out his intentions for the Patio commercial to his supportive wife Kitty (Sarah Drew), who for the first time appears to notice her husband's curious aptitude for acting out a feminine role, as he minces about in their bedroom, so it seems the seed of doubt about Sal's sexuality has been planted in her mind...

The Patio commercial's filming goes swimmingly, but the clients aren't happy with the results, despite it being exactly what they asked for. While a disappointing outcome, Don was impressed enough with Sal's work that he makes him their new commercials director. It's also worth mentioning that it's been a few weeks since Don realized Sal's homosexual, but it doesn't appear to have affected their professional relationship in any way. In fact, Sal's career's only improved since that night in Baltimore, and I find it interesting that Don (who has many dislikeable elements of his personality, not least obsessive womanizing), has actually been instrumental in ensuring first a woman (Peggy) and now a gay man (Sal) have both been treated fairly and have subsequently flourished thanks to his acceptance of them as people above gender/sexuality. Funny how a man whose job is to label things in people's minds hasn't let that way of thinking cloud his judgement of people themselves, no?

The big surprise of "The Arrangements" was Gene dying, which was handled well through virtue of how realistically the event was portrayed: no dramatic death scene, in fact no actual scene of Gene dying on-screen at all. No, like most deaths in real life, it just happened elsewhere and Betty only found out when a policeman arrives at the house to report her dad had collapsed in a queue. It surprised me that they haven't continued Gene's for any longer, as I thought it would provide a season's worth of stories as his illness gradually got worse (and perhaps jeopardized Sally and Bobby's safety), but again that's how these things work...

Even when death's expected in the grip of a sickness, it still comes at an unexpected moment, with no dramatic deathbed moment like in the movies. And there was a fine scene later that night, with the Draper family gathered to mourn in the kitchen, as Sally overheared them chuckling at a memory of Gene and stormed into the room to rant about how unsympathetic they're being, before taking refuge in the front room -- clutching a very grownup history book her grandad made her read to him ("The History Of The Decline & Fall Of The Roman Empire"), while staring at a solemn news report about suicidal Buddhists. Something tells me Gene's made the impact on Sally that he failed to impress on Betty, and she now has the foundation to become a far more capable, independent lady in adulthood...

10 FEBRUARY 2010: BBC4 / BBC HD, 10PM

Apropos of nothing, I'm disappointed the arrival of the British hasn't really impacted the show in any meaningful way so far. The wonderful Jared Harris has barely figured into any of the plots, so it seems like a waste to have includced him on the show. As a Brit myself, I'd like to see some more done with this idea, as the prospect of some Anglo-American clashes was a big reason I was excited about season 3.