MM-4-2

Now that's more like it.... an office Christmas party couldn't possibly be a letdown. Don Draper is now descending in the right way: unrepentantly, unattractively, and unfathomably. The ending of the episode was particularly devastating. But before we get there, let's just say that the office party itself seemed like nothing so much as the Inquirer party in Citizen Kane - more like everybody's nightmare of a party than a good time.

But the biggest news of the week is that Freddy Rumsen is BACK! For all his problems, Freddy is still the most sympathetic character on the show. Like a downcast puppy who can't help but crave the affection he never receives, Freddy's tragedy is that he will always be a cog in the wheels of machinations by other characters who have far more guile. Having been last seen with a career dissolving in a pool of his own alcohol-filled urine, he's now the engine through which Mad Men will cover the rise of AA, and the possibly permanent descent of Peggy's decency. One friend commented to me this week that Peggy has become the most cynical character on the show, and after this week I couldn't agree more. In a certain way, Peggy is unquestionably a role model. But it wouldn't be very good drama if Peggy were a simple hagiography of the original generation of women who broke the glass ceiling. Next to Don, Peggy is easily the most fascinating character on the show. She has learned to compromise ruthlessly with everything she's ever held dear, and she is willing to bear indignities to get what she wants in a way that no other character can reasonably approach. She's a character that has grown so quickly that she's taken on a life of her own. Freddy, her former-mentor, learned the hard way that he can no longer contain his creation. After this week, it would not surprise me to see Peggy stab Freddy in the back in a way that would even make Pete Campbell cringe.

Even the comic moments in Mad Men feel heavy hearted, and it took me a while to remember that Glenn was the same creepy little kid who declared his love for Betty two years earlier (and Matt Weiner's son in real life). But Mad Men has now set up a kind of Electra meets Wuthering Heights scenario for the suburbs, and there's something highly amusing about where this might lead. I think it's highly possible that when Betty learns that Sally has stolen his affections, she might get not a little jealous. But moreover, this particular plotline may turn out to be the linchpin around which the entire fraught relationship between Betty and Sally hangs.

(spoiler alert...)

About the return of Lee Garner Jr., all you can say is that he's both their most loyal client and the closest thing the show has to a pure villain, and he was at his loathsome best this week. But nothing in this week's episode felt nearly as desolate as Don's one-night stand with his secretary, Allison. Don was never one to fool around with secretaries, let alone treat them with anything but contempt. But then again Don always had a much larger pool from which to draw. As Don experiences real rejection - for the first time in the entire series - he declines into doing what every other guy at Sterling-Cooper does and sleeps with whatever girl is closest. The irony of this encounter is that Allison is one of the few women we've met with whom Don experiences a human connection. Most every other woman, from Betty, to Midge, to Rachel Mencken, to Bobbie Barrett, to (eventually) Suzanne Farrell, is less a human being than an unattainable ideal which he inevitably conquers. But a human connection is precisely what Don tries most desperately to avoid, and therefore she must be paid like any prostitute in the form of a Christmas Bonus. With one-twentieth the volume, it's just as devastating as how Uncle Junior treats his secretary in The Sopranos.