There's Poop in the Hallway Again

Oh. Dood. It got REAL on Mad Men last night. Angsty workplace personal and professional drama realness. It was SO good to see all of our favorite SCDP folks really being themselves and being so very much the characters we've all come to love and hate and hatelove. The cast acted the shit out of this episode. One of the best MMs I have seen in a while. I giggled throughout. 

Grumpy Old Man Bert Cooper is having a meeting with Pete, Joanie and some accountant fellow. SCDP is about to go public, and they want $12 a share. Accountant fellow tells them he's done the math, and the best he can really get at this stage is $9 a share. But what does it matter? We'll all be millionaires! "Maybe Trudy will take my sorry ass back if I'm loaded," thinks Pete. Then he hits on Joan. 

Joanie, Joanie, Joanie. Don't deny. You know you want somma dis.

Roger wakes up next to his stewardess lady friend, Daisy. Roger's been asking her to scout out the first class lounge for potential clients and he scolds her for calling him for sexy time and not business. Really, he will take either, but a man's gotta work.

Meanwhile over at the Campbell homestead, Pete's feeling rapey and gets into bed with his estranged wife, Trudy. Trude manages to flirtatiously threaten divorce, and Pete tells her that she should stick with old Petey. He's coming into some Big Buck$$ soon. Because there's no such thing as alimony?

Megan's maman and Roger Sterling erstwhile fuckbuddy Marie is visiting NYC for Mother's Day. Megan and Don have to go to dinner with Sleazy Herb from Jaguar. Megan tells Maman that something isn't right with Don, but she has no clue what's happened. That girl from Freaks and Geeks is what happened. Keep your man on a leash, Megz. Maman's expert advice is for Megan to dress a little sluttier. Because it's real hard to get Don Draper into the sack. 

Why don't we play Thomas Jefferson and you can purchase me?

I think that we can all agree that Marie is AWESOME. Unless you have been living on Saturn, I'm sure you're aware that Marie is portrayed by none other than Juliette Binoche. WHO IS THE FRENCHEST PERSON ON THE PLANET. I also love that Megan's dad is an angry French Canadian Marxist. Like. They should have a show. Rosen comes in to borrow some wrapping paper for Mother's Day, and he's intrigued by Marie. I think we can also all agree that Rosen deseves to get wildly fucked, ne c'est pas?

So. Peggy's moved into this fixer-upper with Abe. It's super cute and historic, but there is the problem of frequent human feces in the hallway, plus the kids upstairs with their damn loud rock music. Peggy hates it. Let's remember that girlfriend is chief creative at a NYC ad agency. And this is where she lives. Because her boyfriend wanted. Ugh. Girl. Fortunately, she is totes bored with Abe. 

In we saw that coming news, Peggy's alone at the office with Ted, and they kiss. D'aww. Peggy starts feeling all in luvz with Ted, an let us not forget that he is married to that hag we met last week, so I'm sure that this will somehow go horribly wrong for her. Then she expresses her love for Bobby Kennedy. Sorry, Peggy, m'love. That Bobby Kennedy thing isn't going to work out for you, either. 

Pete asks Don if he can tag along to the Jaguar dinner with Herb. Don is like, "Um, no." Don thinks the dinner is off, but Roger is in his office when Don arrives the next morning and tells him the dinner is back on, but Pete is not invited. Roger tells Don to bring the spouses to "limit the explosion," and Roger gets the bonus of the good news the La Femme Marie is back in town. Mais oui. 

At Ted's office, the creative team DOESN'T WANT TO DRAW ANY MORE ROCKET SHIPS. They're going over their presentation to Chevrolet, and one of the creatives, Frank, reveals he has pancreatic cancer. Christ on a moped. This sucks for them because of the way their contracts are structured. If Frank dies, the other partners have to buy him out and that could bankrupt the company, since they don't have the Alpha Romero account anymore. Can you dig?

At the airport, Daisy's flirted her way into the good graces of an exec in the first class lounge. She calls Roger and Roger heads over to chat him up. His name's Mikey and he's from Detroit. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that Mikey's from GM. Good scouting, Daisy. Roger instructs Daisy to bring him some water and an onion, but good ole Mikey needs to get liquored up. Then he tells Daisy to find him a seat on the flight to DTE. 

Unable to find a willing female to sleep with him, Pete heads over to a whorehouse with Bob Branson. It's a rule on teevee that if you frequent a brothel, you will run into someone you know. Pete runs into Trude's dad. Oopsie. Entertaining Trudy's dad is, "a two hundred pound Negro prostitute." Actual quote. This is problematic for Pete not only because of his problems with Trude, but in case we have forgotten, Trude's dad is Vicks. And Vicks was getting his Vapo rubbed by "the biggest, blackest prostitute." Actual. Quote. All that's really missing from this party is a few congressmen and some blow. Pete has a WTF do I do convo with Cosgrove and Cosgrove tells Pete to keep mum and cites MAD (mutually assured destruction).

Ya'll my sinuses are clear, thanks to Vicks VapoRuuuuuuuuu......

If Pete rats on Papa Vicks, they might lose the account and people will also know he was there, too. That strategy fails when, later, Don and Roger learn from a rival agency that Vicks has pulled their account. Pete goes over to Vicks and confronts Pa Vicks, and Pa Vicks tells Pete that he's a sleazebag for being at the cat house and that's why. Because dammit. His Trudy is a princess and she deserves better. So, I'm taking away your livelihood. That'll teach you. Then Pete decides to stupidly head out to Trudy's. He tells Trude that daddy pulled the account and informs her that her beloved papa was in a whorehouse. WITH A FAT BLACK PROSTITUTE. Trudy cries, and tells him to get out and that they are through. AND I LAUGHED SO EFFING HARD. Apparently that MLK thing went right over Pete's head after all. 

In awkward dinner conversation news, Don has exactly zero fondness for Herb. Precisely. None. Let's not forget that Don was the only partner who wasn't 100 percent on board with whoring Joanie out to snag the Jaguar account. Megan wears a short skirt to entice Don to, you know, actually sleep with his wife for a change. Maman accompanies them and Roger never shows because, as we later learn, he's in Detroit romancing Chevy. Maman HATES Herb's wife, who is a really talkative; really nice; really, really clueless lady. Maman snarks her in French to Megan, and then the ladies go off to powder their noses. Herb tells Don that he has a young copy editor friend and he'd like SCDP to run their copy by Herb's friend. Don's offended and gives Herb a business card, with the instruction that he can stick it up his ass. SCDP offically loses the Jaguar account, and the spouses and Maman return, wondering WTF just happened. On the up side, Megan's short skirt worked and Don gets into her drawers instead of Sylvia Rosen's. Oh, happy day. Roger calls to talk to Don, and he gets Maman instead. Maman is listening to the joyful sounds of  Don foutre her daughter. Maman wants to know why Monsieur Roger has not called her, and Roger swears he was going to call Maman. Maman thinks this is le merde and so she hangs up on him. He calls back. She hangs up on him again. Le sigh.

It gets real at the office on the morrow. Don drops the bomb that they lost Jaguar. Joan is PISSED. Joan wonders WTF she went through sleeping with Herb for if they were just going to drop the account. Don says Jaguar was going to drop SCDP anyway, and Don dumped them preemptively. Pete is livid. He tells Don that they were brokering a deal to go public, and he'd even gotten the news that they could sell SCDP stock at $11 a share. Don had no idea, and Pete's pissed because he thinks Don doesn't care about the company. There's a public shouting match in the middle of the office and then they take the shouting into the conference room. Then Roger sails in and is like,  "Guys. Guys. Guys. It's coooool, daddy-os. Who givvles a shizzle-nizzle?" He reveals that he landed an appointment to compete for the new Chevy account, and creative meets in Don's office to strategize. They have until Friday to come up with something that will blow the competition into Lake St. Clair.

The deal with GM is that they are working on a top-secret car. The teams have to come up with an ad pitch based on a car they've never seen. We're not all sure what car Chevy is going to debut, but the top guess is the second generation Camaro. If you know, post in the comments.

Ted's working on Chevy, too. Peggy enters his office and they suck face and jeah. Peggy spends the rest of the episode fantasizing about Ted, pretending Abe is Ted when she's sucking face with Abe. Is Peggy going to launch into an illicit affair with her married boss? Does Peggy get to be the office romance? The Other Woman? Does she get to do what she's seen so many of her male coworkers do? I do think she should dump Abe, though. Yeah, he's kind of a schleb, but I feel kind of bad for him now.

Do I win romance? Whee!!

Who does Don run into in the elevator but Dr. Rosen. Dr. Rosen has quit his job. It seems Rosen was trying to get a heart transplant patient and the hospital blocked him, and now his transplant patient and the heart donor are both dead. So, that means he's going to be home during the day. Sorry, Don. But there's always hate sex with Betty!

It's at the airport that Don and Roger learn that they've lost Vicks. Two accounts lost in about 24 hours. Their asses are toast. Don makes it to Detroit, but he can't sleep. He heads down to the hotel bar, and instead of being approached by a hooker or a drunk soldier, he runs into Ted. Ted realizes when he sees Draper that his little agency has no chance of getting the Chevy account. He explains to Don that Chevy brought in two small agencies along with the larger agencies. Ted thinks that they'll take one of the smaller agency's creative work and give it to one of the larger agencies. If you've been following the bouncing ball during this episode, you can guess what happens next. Don and Ted take turns giving their pitches, and they both agree they have solid work. So they decide to merge. They're merging their Chevy pitch as well as their entire agencies. If you hadn't guessed that SCDP and Ted's company were going to merge, the show's final ten minutes may have come to a shock to you. We've been seeing a lot of Ted not just because he's Peggy's boss, but because he'll be joining SCDP as an active member.  

I'm going to rule over you all!! You fools!!

This means Peggy will be working with SCDP peeps yet once more. Don, of course, only clears this merger with Roger before breaking the news to the other partners, but how much of a fit will they throw, really, once they reveal that they've landed the Chevy account to replace the losses of Beans, Ketchup, Jaguar and Vicks? 

Once Ted returns from Detroit, he calls her into his office. Peggy powders her nose and fixes up for her expectant tryst with Ted. She walks in and who's in Ted's office but fucking Don Draper. Fuck a Duck Phillips duck. Sure, Don inadvertently cockblocks her, but he actually seems appreciative of her work for a change. We'll see how long that lasts. Ted and Don assign Peggy to write up the press release and Don gracefully suggests that she give her finished copy to Ted. Will Don have more respect for Peggy now that she's stood up to Don and won Ted's respect? Peggy's team won Ketchup away from SCDP and Don will undoubtedly be using Peggy's creative on their Chevy project.

So, what kind of dick-measuring is going to be in store for the next episode? Will Joan be able to forgive Don for kicking Jaguar to the curb after she had to sex Sleazy Herb? Who will be in charge? Will it be Don? Ted? Will Petey be able to get back into VapoRub's good graces? If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd think Bob Branson planned for Pete's FIL to see him at the sporting house, but maybe MM hasn't turned entirely into soap opera just yet. Winkies.

BUT WILL SOMEONE JUST PUT PEGGY IN CHARGE ALREADY???