Oh say, can you see.....

Don nibbles a lettuce leaf.

( preface : I really should write these little things Sunday night or Monday morning, too much time to think about them does no one any good ...)

A Funny Thing Happened After Leaving the Waldorf or It's a Drunk, Drunk, Drunk, Drunk World.

It's .. later , 1965. Everyone was still wearing coats, so Spring-ish, 1965.

We start off with Don and Peggy interviewing a Hobbit, who really , really wants to work at SCDP. He is Rodger's infant brides cousin, there for.... But the nebbish little furry footed ad man wanna be is not really what it's all about, but we will come back to him. The 1965 Clio awards - Everybody get your drink on!

Don and show are up for Billy-the-Kid Glo Coat - and Victor Kiriakis, aka Jennifer Anniston's daddy, is the MC of the event. Alcohol is bad #1 : did everyone catch who the loud mouth drunk was heckling Victor? None other than on the wagon , Mr. AA, Duck Philips, rock bottoming , yet again. Very interesting little side note for the episode. We win! Bottoms up....

Fasten your seat belts, its going to be a bumpy night.

Themes, themes, themes, when in tv history, have we ever, looked so hard for a theme ? Miss Eudora once said, " Everything is a sign, when you are looking " , maybe everything is a theme, when you wait till Wednesday to write your Sunday night Mad Men post.

TLo thinks the theme was hierarchy, ( nee class ). The breaking down of how everyone stacks up in the power pyramid. Just who does Joan pour a drink for in the conference room ? " You've got lets... Peggy? ". Who is Rodger willing to give a break to, the young hungry talented Don Draper or the hobbit, who has connections ? Peggy constantly looking for her place with the new ( and HOT!) art director , " Why don't you right down my ideas? ". Even to the BEST wig wearing secretary at the firm Mrs. Blankenship telling the tiny applicant " I don't work for you " . Pete letting soon to be co-worker, Ken Cosgrove know that his once equal will be working FOR him , if he comes to the new firm. Get it? Everybody has a place, and they need to know what that place is.

This can also apply to Don's libido this week. First up to the plate to oh so sexy and cool, Dr. Faye whom he instantly strikes out with, moves on to the red white and blue hummer giving Ad girl on the rise, and wakes up with Doris the waitress, you are going the wrong way, Mr. Draper.

Standing on the shoulders of giants, leaves me cold.

Everyone kept messing up little idioms this week, so I will join in as well. " There is no limit to how far you can go , if you don't mind who takes the credit " , or something like that, I never can get these things right. Just how much work did Peggy put in on Glo Coat ? DID Roger even hire Don in the first place,which he says is his claim to fame or is Don just that good at manipulating people? Don asking aloud, how Roger got his first break .. Daddy had an Ad Firm and for all he know, he is having his way with Mr Lucky Strike.

Last week we saw hard drinking Don at the top of his game, winning over the Honda folks with his smarts and cunning alone. This week demon rum was not his friend. In a drunken post Clio award meeting with the Life Cereal folks, Don mistakenly pitches an idea from the Hobbit, which he later has to rectify by hiring him! Do you put your head down, let your bosses take your work, or do you stick your head up, maybe to get it chopped off. Sure, an age old theme, but it was with us at the Waldorf.

The Lost Weekend

or

"You've crossed the border from lubricated to morose."

Ok, I have been known to take the random drink. Yes. But I have never lost a whole day - which Don did, right ?? Time is a little fuzzy for me on this one, and really, this is the first mistake that the writers have made on the show. Unless, Don was blacked out, but walking around ( and preforming ! ) for like.. 36 hours ?!?

The show starts on Friday morning, because I don't think everyone would work on a Saturday, which would make more sense. Getting ahead of myself. Don and Roger start drinking pre award show - go to the event - come back, meet with Life, then go off to the Pen and Paper ( Pen and Pencil ?? ) for the after party. Don takes Betsy Ross home and passes out. So, it is, really at the latest - early early in the AM on Saturday.

RING RING - It's NOON on Sunday, and Betsy is pissed that Don has not picked up the kids. It's not the girl he took home, but a strange waitress that he " ate three orders of fries with, after his sister left them." Like any good drunk, lets piece things together. Don and Friday night girl sleep late, Saturday morning, then go get something to eat - Don a zombie, all this time. More drinking? I'm going to go with yes, since its the first thing he did Sunday morning. It just does not seem plausible to me that so much black out time could take place - with higher function, going out, eating , picking up waitresses. Yes , a forgotten hamburger or two at Blanches, but not a day and a half. And, AND - She called him DICK the next painful morning. Many are saying he was so drunk that he let Dick slip.. ( pun SO intended ) , but I think he was just embarrassed to be picking up diner waitresses, and just went with , what to him, is a fake name. ( btdt )

Just let art flow...

The other time line issue that the web is going on and on about are the dates of the Roger - Joan affair. Everyone all bent out of shape because it seems to be too long ago, that Our Miss Joanie got her first fur capelet! Here is the thing folks, I do not think we KNOW that Joan was working for Sterling Cooper when the affair started, do we ? She could have started after the things she did to earn the mink...

I don't really see where making Don just a sick raging alcoholic moves the story along. Was showing Duck off the wagon some sort of foreshadowing ? Freddy was shown to be ineffective and out of touch with all his AA-ness. Just not sure where this is headed, I really do not see Don as being all temperate during the swinging part of the 60's that are just around the corner. But this drinking spell came out with some bad consequences. One thing I may see as coming down the pike is a wedding for Don - him thinking that Miss Barbazon Hotel can keep him , at least, a little bit sober.. just a thought. A lot of folks are saying they did not like this episode, it is what it is , or was , and we learned A LOT. Weren't you just crazy happy to see the infamous Betsy Fur Ad? Note to the powers that be, we really are somehow going to need much , much more Betsy in the show....

All this AND they won the EMMY for best drama. IT was a big big night for the folks at Sterling Cooper Draper Price!