Robbing the Cradle

In the tenth episode of Mad Men, "Long Weekend," everyone takes advantage of Memorial Day by making bad decisions: Sterling rides a twenty-year old like a horse (literally), Joan lets an old, ugly guy change her bedroom light bulb, and Don finds solace in Rachel Menken.


So I've obviously failed in my goal to recap all of the first season of Mad Men before the second season started (the first episode aired on July 27th, and the second aired yesterday, the 3rd). And I seriously considered just giving this project up for dead, since it's so time-consuming to write these recaps and there are few rewards. But then I decided that one of the rewards is being able to look at every minute of this brilliant show in great detail, and having that deeper understanding of the plot, characters, and its themes. And also, I really want to recap "Nixon vs. Kennedy," because that episode is incredible and hilarious, but if I do episode 12 I might was well do episodes 11 and 13. I probably won't do full recaps for season two, at least for the time being, but maybe in the future I'll go back and continue to hone my recapping skills. Anyway, on with the recap.

Mad Men episode 10
Previously on Mad Men: Joan and Sterling had a hot affair, Pete punched Ken for calling Peggy a “lobster,” everyone was talking about Kennedy, and Betty had issues about her dead mom.

Don comes down the stairs at the Draper home and learns, from Sally, that Grandpa and “Aunt Gloria” are there. In the kitchen, Betty is getting the luggage together for the family, sans Don, to go to Cape May, and trying to convince her father not to eat so much sugar. Don enters and greets his father-in-law and his new girlfriend. The two (Gene and Gloria) joke about how she lives to serve, and Betty is obviously very unpleased. She drags Don away to help with a suitcase, aka, to bitch. Upstairs, she says it’s unseemly how fast her father found someone new: “Was she waiting at the funeral, unbuttoning her top button like some Sadie Hawkin’s dance?” Heh, I like Betty when she’s bitchy. Don says that she seems nice, but Betty’s convinced she’s a “vulture. Her husband was a failure. When he died they found out he cheated on his income taxes. And her kids! Louise never married, two more years and she’ll be hanging out at funerals too!” Betty is indignant and judgey, a vast improvement from when she’s weak and passive. Don points out that her dad was married for 40 years, and is basically incapable of taking care of himself, and even if he got a housekeeper, she’d go home at night. Betty doesn’t want to hear about her dad’s sexual needs, but Don tries to convince her to relax and enjoy the weekend away. Betty asks Don to come with them today, instead of joining them tomorrow, but he insists he has to go to work.

At Sterling Cooper, the men are in the conference room watching an ad for Kennedy. They both make fun of and admire its catchy jingle and slick production. Harry says that “it’s catchy like it gets in your head and makes you want to blow your brains out.” Pete adds, “President as a product. Don’t forget that.” Next, they watch an ad from Nixon that features him sitting on a desk and talking in monotone about taxes. Paul jokes that they should give Nixon a jingle that goes, “Ethel, go get the icepick. That Nixon guy is on TV again.” Catchy! Sterling enters, and Pete wonders what sort of dirt they have on JFK. Sterling says that he’s a womanizer, but it doesn’t really matter. They all agree that they never should have been this close in the polls. Don says, “Why do we need to attack when there’s a story to tell?” He describes Kennedy as a spoiled rich boy, while “Nixon is from nothing. Self-made man, Abe Lincoln of California, who was vice president six years after getting out of the Navy. Kennedy, I see a silver spoon. Nixon, I see myself.” Presidential campaign as narrative is a good tactic, but Sterling goes back to talking about mud-slinging. He wants to make an ad that “aims a Howitzer at Kennedy’s balls.” I’d like to aim my Howitzer at Kennedy’s balls. Sterling says he wants to hear ideas after the long weekend. Pete says, “I agree. Let’s go down swinging.” Both Don and Sterling look annoyed at Pete’s need to have the last word, and Sterling changes the topic to Menken’s. Rachel and her father, Abe, are coming in this morning, and Sterling wants Don to “go in and ride bareback over Paul here.” It would be way too easy to make a dirty joke here; I want to keep things classy, like my Howitzer joke. As everyone leaves, Sterling leans in and tells Don to be on his best behavior, because he knows how Rachel bothers him. Don’s look says, “Yeah… not exactly.”

Sterling walks out of the conference room and over to Joan, and asks for a word. As they walk, he spouts vague business-y phrases while she remains silent. His shtick is obviously getting old, and she purposely leaves his office door open. Sterling tells her that his family is out of town for the weekend, along with everyone his wife knows, so the two of them can go anywhere they want without fear of people seeing. Joan suggests seeing “The Apartment” (did they already screen that in Bryant Park? I know it’s part of their summer movie series), but Sterling already saw it. He wasn’t impressed: “A white elevator operator? And a girl at that. I want to work at that place.” Joan humorlessly replies, “Oh, I bet you do. The way those men treated that poor girl, handing her around like a tray of canapés. She tried to commit suicide.” Sterling surmises that she’s seen it, and tells her that movies are crude, and that’s not how it is with them. He charms her into a smile by telling a story about his wife, who was once mad at him for a whole day after dreaming that he hit the dog with his car. “We don’t even have a dog!” he finishes. She says that she’ll call him later, but it’s pretty obvious she’s not going to follow through.

Paul is presenting his remodeling plans to the Menkens, which include a restaurant on the ground floor. Abe is unhappy to give up so much retail space, and to close his store during renovations. Don assures him that they’ll be building anticipation during that time, like a movie premiere. Abe tells Don, “My daughter’s presence here should tell you that I’m not against change,” but he doesn’t understand why he can’t just build on what he already has. Don tells him bluntly, “You don’t have anything. Your customer’s can’t be depended on anymore.” As they’ve gotten richer, they’ve developed new tastes: “They’re like your daughter.” Rachel, by the way, looks ridiculously fierce in her chignon and multi-strand pearl necklace. Don continues that Rachel and his customers are “educated, sophisticated. They know full well what they deserve, and they’re willing to pay for it.” Rachel has this look on her face like, “Dammit, Don Draper, why must you make it so hard for me to resist screwing you right here on this conference table? In front of my father?”

Abe wants to know why he would want to run a store he wouldn’t want to shop in, and Don brings up the original Menken’s, a hosiery store on Seventh Avenue (yuck). “And that’s a story you’ll be proud to tell your grandchildren, there’s only one problem: They won’t care. As much as Grandpa likes that marble palace, I can promise you, they won’t. They’ll look at it and they’ll say, ‘Grandpa, it must have been hard, back in the olden days.” Abe laughs that it was hard, and Rachel interrupts that this isn’t some cute story, but her father’s life work. “My father started with nothing, and he made it into everything we’re talking about. Who here can say that?” Don apologizes for any disrespect, and Abe says it’s fine. He agrees with Rachel, “It does seem very well thought out.” “It is,” Pete says. Everyone exchanges, “Why is he so useless?” looks. The Menkens get up to leave, and Don comments to Rachel that he thinks Abe likes him. Rachel says, “I guarantee you, there is nothing about you he likes.” “What about you?” Don asks, and the seduction in his voice is practically palpable. She doesn’t respond, and heads with her father to the elevators. As they leave, Abe comments that Sterling Cooper reminds him of a “Tsarist ministry: no matter what the decision, you don’t feel it was yours.” He comments on Don, who is “a little dashing” for Abe’s taste.

Joan is in the break room when her roommate, Carol, comes rushing in. Joan leans in and says, “Don’t tell me you’re late again. Do you need to see Doctor Emerson?” I can totally imagine a Joan and Carol spin-off called “Sex and the Sixties,” with lots of back-alley abortions and sugar daddies. Carol says no, it’s about her crappy job reading the “slush pile” – unsolicited manuscripts—at a publishing company. She got fired after covering for her boss, and now she’ll have to ask her dad “for more money, again.” Joan gets her feminism on: “These men. We’re constantly building them up, and for what? Dinner? Jewelry? Who cares? We need to go out and shake all this gloominess.” Aw, Joan’s a pretty good friend. She suggest they go and find some men to spend money on them (um, wasn’t that what she was just railing against?). Carol says that she hates Manhattan sometimes, and Joan sounds wounded as she tells Carol not to say that: “This city is everything.”

Don is working in his office when Pete enters, with the bad news that they lost the Dr. Scholl’s account. Pete says they were unhappy with the creative, which could not possibly be worse than the “Are you gelling? I’m gelling like Magellen” ads from a few years ago. It was the first account Pete’s ever lost, and there was nothing he could do to change their minds. Don tells him, “The day you sign a client is the day you start losing them.” Not much of a pep talk. Pete wonders if he should tell Sterling, and Don says that he’ll do it. As soon as Pete walks out, Don shows his anger by knocking half of his office supplies off his desk. Drama queen! Peggy comes in, wondering what happened, and goes to clean up Don’s mess. He tells her to leave it, and asks if she wears Dr. Scholl’s inserts. “I thought we all had to,” she says. I love the idea that someone is waiting by the elevator to check every employee’s shoes for insoles in the morning. Don tells her to take them out, and then he rips a file folder in half and tells her to trash it. Don Draper: so manly he can rip a folder full of paper without rumpling his shirt!

Don visits Sterling’s office to deliver the bad news. Sterling is getting a haircut. In his office. I am so jealous. Don adds, “Campbell enjoyed telling me it was something to do with creative.” The barber trims Sterling’s nose hair (sexy!) as Don says that sales were steady, so he wasn’t the one who dropped the ball. Sterling repeats Don’s line to Pete, about starting to lose a client the day you sign them. Don asks, “You don’t really believe that?” Sterling compares a client relationship to marriage: “Sometimes you get into it for the wrong reasons and eventually they hit you in the face.” Sterling brushes off the business talk for vacation talk: “Between now and Monday we have to fall in love half a dozen times.” Don claims he has to go meet Betty at the shore tomorrow, and Don insists that they work so hard so they afford to send their families to great weekend homes and “live it up here.” I bet Sterling makes the “Take my wife. No, really, please take my wife!” joke a lot. He tells Don, “Give me tonight. You owe me that. I can use you as bait.” Aw, Sterling loves his wingman so dearly. He suggests they go down to a casting call for double-sided aluminum, because there’ll probably be twins to hit on. Sterling says, “Remember Don, when God closes a door, he opens a dress.”

Pete’s strolling through the office and falls in step with Peggy. She’s ready to ignore him, but he asks about the folder she’s carrying—it’s stuff for the Belle Jolie campaign. Pete grabs her arm, unhappy with the amount of attention she’s paying to his lame single entendres. Peggy tells him, “If you want to see the proofs, you’ll have to check with Mr. Cosgrove. It’s his account.” Pete thinks it’s funny how formal Peggy is, and asks if Don talked to Sterling yet. “You’ll have to ask him,” she replies, obviously having learned something from the days she let Pete steal research out of Don’s trashcan. Peggy goes to leave again, and Pete asks what’s wrong with her. “Excuse me? I’m just trying to do my job and you’re making it very difficult.” Peggy is being so mature that Pete feels compelled to talk to her like a three-year-old: “Peggy dear, I think I understand what this is about. But you’re not being professional right now.” Peggy’s face says, “I cannot believe I slept with you. Twice,” and her mouth says, “I cannot believe I am in this conversation.” Pete hotly says, “You think this is easy for me,” and Peggy replies that she has no idea. “I don’t know if you like me, or if you don’t like me. I’m just trying to get along here. And every time I walk by, I wonder, are you going to be nice to me? Or cruel?” Pete’s already gotten a leg up on his high horse, and reminds her that he’s married. Peggy says she knows, and he told her how confusing that can be. “Maybe you need me to lie on your couch to clear that up for you again.” Oh, snap! Pete, as usual, goes as low as possible: “That’s some imagination you got. Good thing you’re a writer now. What do you need me for?” Man, Joan would never put up with Pete’s crap like this.

Outside the casting department, there’s five or six sets of sisters (I expected identical twins, but each woman look noticeably different from her pair). Salvatore raves over one woman’s bone structure, and Ken tells another that he once saw a cow give birth to two calves that were attached at the back, and after they were cut apart they always wanted to be together. “Is that what happened to you two?” Ken thinks he’s being so smooth, but… not so much. Paul asks another whether she likes Ukrainian food—the same thing he asked Peggy in the second episode. I guess he only has one line, which I somehow doubt is very effective. Sterling and Don enter and send the Mad Boys back to work. Sterling looks at the women like he’s shopping for the best apples. He picks probably the youngest, yet also least attractive sisters, and says that he’s using his authority to send all the other girls home. He convinces Eleanor and Mirabelle to come upstairs for a celebratory drink, and they accept.

Sterling and Mirabelle have cozied up quickly, while Don is trying not to encourage Eleanor. Don asks Mirabelle about her hobbies, and she says that she’s a horseback rider. Sterling admires her skin and asks if he can touch it, because he’s a creepy old man. He strokes her leg, and says, “You gotta feel this.” He clarifies that he’s talking to Eleanor, and she comes and sits on the other side of Sterling. Then he turns the Creep-o-Meter up to full capacity and starts prodding her to give her sister a kiss. Don looks disgusted, and the girls look uncomfortable. Mirabelle sadly wonders why everyone always wants them to do that. Don tries to excuse himself, but the girls aren’t interested in staying with just Sterling. Getting the fact that he won’t be engaging in a threesome, Sterling orders everyone to stay. Eleanor asks Don to dance to the soft record that’s playing, and he reluctantly agrees.

Elsewhere, Joan and Carol and primping for their night out. Joan’s unhappy with her look, and says, “What a rut. 1960, I am so over you.” Carol goes to zip up Joan’s dress, and leans in to smell Joan’s neck. Joan tells her not to get depressed, because tears will ruin her makeup. Carol laughs that she’s happy right now, because she loves spending time with Joan. She gets serious, and really awkward, and says, “Joan. I love you.” Joan busies herself with her lipstick, and Carol launches into a monologue about how she’s been obsessed with Joan since the first week of college, then followed her to New York. “You needed a roommate, I moved in. Just to be near you. I did everything I could to be near you. All with the hope that one day, you would notice me.” Carol is so sad, and yet, she’s almost so pathetic that I don’t feel as sorry for her as I do for our other closeted sadsack, Salvatore. I mean, if Carol missed her chance to push Joan into a lesbianism experimentation phase during college, she should be smart enough to give up at this point. Carol leans in to Joan and says, “Just think of me as a boy.” Joan is speechless for a few long minutes, then tells Carol that she’s had a hard day, and they need to go out now so she can forget about it. For a second, Carol looks like she’s going to protest Joan’s abrupt shutdown of Carol’s romantic overtures, but then agrees to go out.

Back at the office, Eleanor has her legs strewn over Don’s lap, but he’s very carefully not touching her. Sterling and Mirabelle are laughing in the other room, possibly braiding each other’s hair or having tea with their stuffed animals. Eleanor leans in for a totally passionless kiss with Don, then pulls back and brightly asks if he has any gum. He does not, robbing him of the chance to make many Doublemint jokes. He tries to excuse himself again, and out comes Sterling, riding on poor Mirabelle’s back like a horse. Creepy! Not sexy! Don and Eleanor look rather unimpressed, and head out towards the elevator. Don offers to call her a car, but she insists on waiting for her sister. She says that she’s been around the block a few times, but Mirabelle hasn’t. “Now all you’re thinking about is going around the block, huh?” she says. “I don’t think I could even get out of the driveway,” he laughs. She seriously asks him again to wait with her.

Sterling is lying on Mirabelle’s lap, stroking her bare legs (she lost her dress somewhere during the night). She giggles, and Sterling says he hasn’t heard his daughter, Margaret, laugh since she was seven. He asks Mirabelle why Margaret is so angry, and Mirabelle soothingly tells him not to be sad. He looks up at her and obsesses over her skin again. “I want to eat it. I want to suck your blood like Dracula.” If Mirabelle had been around the block a few more times, she might have enough sense to run. Instead, she leans over to kiss him.

Joan and Carol are returning from their night out, with two men in tow. These guys are, to be blunt, not cute. They’re old, but not silver foxes like Slattery. They’re sort of chubby and pretty nebbish, like unsuccessful encyclopedia salesmen. Joan can obviously do better—maybe the casting is trying to suggest that she lowered her standards in order to find a man with a friend for Carol. Joan asks Franklin, the older of the two, about his interest in language. He says it’s a hobby, and the other guy adds that his hobby is carpentry, and he’s building a dry sink. Joan rightly ignores this, and says that she loves language. Franklin tells a story about the Polish janitor at his office who described his bride as “not speaking real good English,” and they all laugh. Joan seductively asks Franklin to come help her change the light bulb in her room. Real subtle. The pair go into her room and shut the door. Carol is left alone with the other one, who immediately jumps on her face. She stops him, but then says, “Whatever you want.” Sad, sad.

Don is still at the office, and admits to Eleanor that he’s married. She says that he kisses like a married man, “your own way, no talking you out of it.” She assures him that’s a good thing, and then says that she’ll do whatever he tells her to. Don nicely tells her, “Maybe it’s this office, but you’re selling too hard.” From the other room, Mirabelle calls for help. As Don walks up, she says, “Something’s wrong. I knew I shouldn’t have asked him to do it a second time.” Sterling is on the floor, clutching his chest, obviously having a heart attack. Don tells the girls to call an ambulance and then leave. Later, the paramedics are wheeling out Sterling, who is woozily calling for Mirabelle. Don stops the gurney, and firmly slaps Sterling across the face. “Mona. Your wife’s name is Mona,” he says, very gruff and serious.

At the hospital, Don checks on Sterling, who’s looking extremely grey in his hospital bed. He says, “All these years, I thought it would be the ulcer. I did everything they told me to: drank the cream, ate the butter. I get hit with a coronary.” Don tells him it’s good that he’s talking, but Sterling doesn’t want to be reassured. He asks Don if he believes in energy, like a soul. Don asks, “What do you want to hear?” Sterling says that he’s been living the last twenty years like he’s been on shore leave, and “What the hell is that about?” Don reassures him that it’s living, but Sterling is fully into his crisis of conscience. Mona enters, and Sterling begins crying about how much he loves her. And he looks so weak, and sad, that you almost forget how he was molesting a twenty year old an hour ago. Mona says that Margaret is outside, and he needs to pull it together for her. Margaret comes in and hugs her dad, and there are tears all around. Don watches from the doorway, deep in thought.

Joan and Franklin enter the abandoned Sterling Cooper offices that same night, and find Cooper sitting alone in the dark. He called her so they could send telegrams to their clients, assuring them that business will continue despite Sterling’s heart attack. He dictates addresses as she types, trying not to cry.

Don calls Betty from a hospital pay phone. He tells her about Sterling, and that he won’t be able to come tomorrow. Betty says she wishes she could come home, and she can’t stand watching her dad treat Gloria like he treated her mother. She starts waxing philosophical about life moving on, and he tells her to stop thinking about that. She tells him to remember to eat something, and they hang up.

Pete has come to the hospital (who called him?), and Don tells him that they don’t really know how Sterling is. They hear the TV from the other room, and move to watch a commercial claiming that Nixon didn’t make any mjajor decisions as vice president. Yay, mud-slinging!

Don leaves, and Sterling’s brush with death and recommitment to his family inspires our hero to go to Rachel Menken’s. She says she got the telegram, and asks if Don’s ok. He invites himself in and asks for a drink, looking all sorts of disheveled. They talk about Sterling, and Don goes in to kiss her. She asks him if he thinks this is a solar eclipse, end of the world, do whatever you want sort of situation, and tells him to go to sleep. He sits down, and asks her to sit next to him. She has on this hugely voluminous teal robe, with some sort of sheer cape on the back. Gorgeous, needless to say. Don says, “I don’t like feeling like this,” and she assures him that no one does. Don tells her about the first time he was a pallbearer, when he was fifteen and his aunt died. He felt shocked at how close they let him get to the box, how they weren’t hiding death from him, and he saw the old people and thought, “I just moved up a notch.” She asks what he wants from her, and he says, “You know. I know you do. You know everything about me.” She protests that she doesn’t, but Don kisses her. She stops him and tells him to go to his wife, but Don won’t have it. “Jesus, Rachel, this is it. This is all there is and I feel like it’s slipping through my fingers like a handful of sand. This is it. This is all this is.” Rachel is desperately holding onto her morals, and tells Don that he’s just making excuses for bad behavior. He kisses her again, and she gives in. He lies her down on the couch, but stops and says, “No—unless you tell me you want this.” “Yes, please,” she says. And finally, after ten episodes, Rachel and Don get it on.

Back at the office, Cooper is walking Joan to the elevator and tells her, “Not that it’s any of my business, but you could do a lot better.” She thinks he’s talking about Franklin, but Cooper knows about her and Sterling. He advises her not to waste her youth on age, and Joan tries to maintain her calm face. As they get in the elevator, Cooper asks her to press the lobby button. I’m sure there’s a lot of great parallels I could make if I’d seen The Apartment, but alas.

Don and Rachel are post-coital, still on her white couch. Don decides it’s time to add another installment in the Don Draper Mystery Story Hour. He tells her that his mother died in childbirth, like Rachel’s did. “She was a prostitute. I don’t know if my father paid her, but when she died, they brought me to him and his wife. And when I was ten years old, he died. He was a drunk who got kicked in the face by a horse. She buried him and took up with some other man, and I was raised by those two sorry people.” She gently kisses him on the head.

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