Smoke-Worthy Moments in Mad Men: Episode 303

Don Draper would tell his boss to fuck off. But he's not into self deprecation.


Much has already been said about Mad Men – the clever and multilayered writing, the superb editing and direction that lingers on moments no other show would dare to spend time on, the acting that says more without words than a page of script could ever say – the list goes on. After each episode, the Internets goes nuts with recaps and interpretations. So far, I haven’t seen anyone do it better than NYMag’s Vulture blog. Check their latest analysis on Episode 303 here and here.

Here, I bring you my own take on a Mad Men episode recap/analysis: Smoke-Worthy Moments in Mad Men: Scenes that feel so good you’ll need a cigarette (and maybe a nap) afterwards. And as if you didn’t know, spoilers aplenty.

Despite not owning a TV, I’ll try to get this out by Mon or Tues. As always, I encourage commenters to offer their own Chuck-Norris-esque opening Draperisms, top moments and thoughts on the post as a whole. Enjoy.


Top moments of Episode 303: My Old Kentucky Home

1) “I’m Peggy Olsen and I want to smoke some marijuana”
Why is it that smart, hardworking girls / young women on TV often are also the highly unlikeable, know-it-all brown-noser who hates fun (Lisa Simpson comes to mind). Despite her preggers mishap, Peggy played that role for over two seasons. Until now.
Here, Peggy gets stoned, is inspired in Draper-like fashion (staring off into space or the cue cards) and then sends the boys home so she can single-handedly give Bacardi its requested vacation scenarios. Still, not entirely groundbreaking. She has joined in with the boys before (strip club, season 2), come up with great ideas (basket of kisses, season 1) and saved the day (every episode, all seasons). It wasn’t until Peggy stood up for herself to her secretary, of all people, proclaiming that she’s a big girl and will be ok being the modern woman she wants to be, dope smoking included. She might as well have been looking directly at the camera. I’m not totally convinced this is confidence and not hubris. The flick of the writers’ pens will determine that in episodes to come. But of the female triumvirate, Peggy clearly is more satisfied in life than Joan “Play Monkey Play” Crawford or Betty “Touch My Baby, Baby” Draper.
Get some Peggy.

2) Mad Men is great because of the details, the collection of little moments where you’re amazed they get it right. Blogs have been ripping on the show lately, saying creator Matt Weiner is missing out on anachronisms like 1970s cymbals and 1980s encyclopedias.
Some of these details can actually make money. There’s been a lot of press about product placement in Mad Men (I’ll leave it to Tastemaker to link me up). So they grow the top line, but we’re in a recession - what about cutting costs? You’ll notice that Mad Men almost never uses recognizable actors. Weiner and co. chalk it up to “allowing the audience to better relate to the characters.” Blah blah blah. It’s all about the papers. Mad Men deftly avoids the oft-used celebrity cameo and therefore the celebrity cameo fee. This idea became obvious to me in a collection of moments in episode 303: John McCain as a decorated war hero? Nah, Betty’s dad will do just fine. A handsome, carefree Princeton grad? Jeffrey, Tigertone class of ‘55 is cheaper than Tom Cruise. And an episode entitled “Kentucky” without Colonel Sanders seems downright blasphemous… until you get a load of Burt Cooper in that hat.

3) Vulture et al probably commented all about how this episode should have been titled “Show And Tell.” I loved it. I thought Pete Campbell doing his celebration dance in episode 302 would be all we’d get from him. And it would have been enough (Side note: Did Vincent Kartheiser practice that dance? Are those his real moves? Did the script call for “awkward and embarrassing celebration?”). Turns out it was just a taste. Pete and his wife Trudy broke it down so hard they cleared the dance floor (to the chagrin of season two scene stealer Mrs. Harry Crane). And while everyone, the bosses included, were impressed, the show’s director was not. “This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends.” Paul quotes TS Elliot while stoned on the floor back in the office, yet with a delayed cutaway, it was made to seem like Kinsey was describing the rug-cutting display and not his own inner workings. My laugh out loud moment right behind number 1.
As most of you know, everything on this show means something and I believe this voiceover was no exception. “Not with a bang but with a whimper” Elliot concludes. So if all Pete’s attention-whoring is the bang, what’s the whimper? Will Pete (or Trudy?) be the end for our anti-hero protagonist? Pete’s always been set up to be the bad guy, but really he's just the embodiment of what Don Draper pretends to be when playing dress-up as a Clark Kent - ad man by day, family man by night. We know there’s no Cuban bang, despite Kinsey’s mention of it. Instead, “A whimper” could be the slow change of the times that their lifestyle will undergo with the coming of the 70s . The world won’t end – just the world as 1960s Madison Avenue knows it.

It was good for me, was it good for you?*

*That’s my tagline – I was going for thinly veiled sexual humor just like Mad Men!

Hat Tip: Makens for the reads / rereads and Scos for the McCain sighting.