Mad Men has this way of being so beautifully tragic that you almost forget that you just witnessed a wholly depressing episode. “At The Codfish Ball” deals with disappointment that hits the principals like a truck.
Don
Who wouldn’t love dealing with their socialist-leaning, disapproving father-in-law for an entire weekend? To top it all off, Don was also dealing with almost losing a pitch. Don’s cluelessness in work has not fully evaporated as he fails to notice all the warning signs about the Heinz dinner that he’s about to get canned. He’s lucky that Megan is able to both come up with an idea that is far better than his and able to charm the Heinz guy’s wife so much that she gets the inside information about being canned.
His pitch is vintage Don Draper stuff, even lifted from Megan, and he handles the Heinz guy brilliantly. Is this the herald of a return to form for Don?
Perhaps, but Don’s got a much bigger problem. Ken’s father-in-law reveals to him that, despite the recognition he’s received for the tobacco stunt from S4, he hasn’t just deep-sixed SCDP’s business with cigarettes, he’s potentially screwed himself over with anyone of substance. The future looks grim for SCDP.
Megan
What is Megan’s dream? Her father seems to think that she’s compromised by going into advertising and marrying Don and taking all of his money and benefits. I wonder if she intended to be a writer because I can’t see Emile approving of her being an actor either.
Anyway, Megan has herself an interesting episode. The Heinz success is really her success, but Don is forced to do the heavy lifting while giving her marginal credit in front of Heinz. That didn’t seem to bug her, but the success in general and recognition in the office certainly did. I wonder if the writers took Peggy off of the account so that her scene of genuine joy and support for Megan’s success would have fewer undertones of jealousy.
What really undercuts the success is the distaste her father seems to show for it. He’s not proud of her for marrying a successful man nor is he proud of her for succeeding at her morally bankrupt job. Tough crowd out there.
Emile
Insult upon insult was heaped upon Emile in this episode. His book fails to do well and his wife relentlessly hits on Don and Roger in front of him and insults him in front of his daughter. He is uncomfortable with all the decadence of Don’s life and hostile to all parts of it. I thought that Pete was particularly vicious in cutting him down after his second question about what it was that an accounts man did. I mean, Pete completely obliterated him. It was brutal and amazing.
Sally
Is anything in Sally’s life not disappointing? She gets a chance to be sophisticated and go out with her father, but the dinner features no ballroom steps and whole fish, a food she does not care for, as an entree. Things look up for a while as Roger is charming and pleasant to her, treating her with just the right amount of respect for a girl her age, but her opinions are completely destroyed when she witnesses Megan’s mother giving Roger head in a back room (could they be less discreet? Seriously…)
“How is the city?”
“Dirty.”
Peggy
The only other story with focus has nothing to do with the Drapers/Calvets or even Heinz. Abe seems to resent being around the guys at SCDP with Peggy, but instead of breaking up with her like she thought he might, he proposes…they move in together. This is the 1960s and her mother is a pretty serious Catholic, so you can imagine how that went over, but even more heartbreaking was reading Peggy’s face when she realized that Abe wasn’t actually proposing to her. Amazing acting.
I also really appreciated how supportive Joan was of the move. Joan and Peggy get the award for being super nice in the face of a lot of ugliness this episode.
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