This week, Pete really took it in the kisser. He got out-manned by Draper, punched by Pryce, screwed by a stranger and rejected by a girl dumb enough to drink vanilla extract.
Pete started and ended the show in driver’s ed class with kids half his age. It’s already been established that’s his idyllic suburban life is not going as planned, what with having to commute with dopes and come home to a less-than-dolled up wife and then have no super to call when the sink leaks.
He is perked up in class, quite literally, when he spots a far too young girl in flip-flops that he can charm with his…maturity? Lack of social skills? Weaponry?
At Trudy’s request, Megan drags Don up to the Campbells’ house in Cos Cob at what shall henceforth be known as the World Series of Terrible/Fabulous Sportcoats. Pete gushes all over Don for showing up for the dinner, and then the sink gushes all over everyone because Pete doesn’t know how to plumb.
Thankfully, Don knows that the first step in fixing a spraying sink is to take off your shirt and look sexy. Then, fix the leak. Look sexy. Make Pete feel inadequate. Sexy again.
Earlier in the episode, Ken Cosgrove revealed to Peggy that a book publisher wanted to print a collection of his short sci-fi stories, which he writes under the nom de plume “Ben Hargrove.”
Well, at Pete and Trudy’s Awkward Dinner Celebrating the World Series of Terrible/Fabulous Sportcoats, Ken’s wife tells the group about one of Ben Hargrove’s bestest stories, called “The Punishment of X4.” The story concerns a robot under the control of humans who does everything for them and then eventually kills them all, basically because it can. Even drunk, Don can read between the lines.
On the way home from Connecticut, Drunk Don tells Megan he wants to make a baby, to which she responds, “That’s impossible,” but nothing is impossible with scotch and a wet t-shirt.
Meanwhile, Lane Pryce wears many red accessories and watches the World Cup in a bar with another England defector. Lane tells the partners the next day that he thinks he can sign Jaguar to the firm, vis-a-vis his new English chap, and Roger decides to offer his services as Person Who Used to Do This Sort of Thing Better than Everybody, reviewing Jaguar’s request for proposal and giving him pointers on securing the account. When meeting doesn’t go so well, because Jaguar Jerry just wants to be shown a good time, Pete says that he, Don and Roger will take him out.
And out they go, to dinner and then, at Jaguar Jerry’s request, to a party Roger knows about at a classy local whorehouse. After Jaguar Jerry, Roger and Pete find, er, company for the evening, the house madam offers to hook Don up with the lady – or gentleman!- of his choice. He refuses, undoubtedly due to frightening nightmare scenarios involving strangled women who are not his wife.
Later, Don shoots disapproving glances at Pete, and Pete says Don has a lot of nerve playing the morality card. Don explains he’s got everything he wants now, and Pete should be grateful for everything he has.
In perhaps one of the most gloriously hilarious scenes in “Mad Men” history, Lane bounds into the usual partners meeting the next day, furious because the Jaguar account is a no-go after Jaguar Jerry’s wife found him with “gum in his pubis.” When Pete insults Lane for being so righteous, Don pulls the conference room shades (!) and Pete (called a “grimy little pimp”) and Lane go at it in a sad display of fisticuffs. We are rewarded when Pete is knocked on his ass. Pryceless!
Joan attempts to make Lane feel better with some ice and a chat in his office, he bungles the situation and kisses her. Joan handles it brilliantly, by opening the door and assuring him that every person in the office has wanted a shot at knocking out Pete. Pete leaves on an elevator with Don, telling him he has nothing.
Finally back at driver’s ed, we see that Pete’s sorry attempts at statutory rape have been thwarted when a younger, more attractive, age-appropriate boy expresses interest in his flip-flopped object of desire. The episode closes with him glaring at the two of them.
The injection of the news of the day is getting a bit obvious and heavy-handed here, with Pete’s jailbait talking about “the sniper” and dinner party conversation about murderers without these elements really factoring into the story. Also, could Pete look any more like a serial killer when he’s glowering? It troubles me that he still has a firearm at the office.
Finally, enough with the next-episode teasers that give you nothing to anticipate. Next week: characters saying, “Oh no,” “You’ve got to be kidding me,” and “Exactly what I thought.”