"Mad Men" Season 4, Episode 11 Television Review

"Mad Men" Season 4, Episode 11

Television Review

By our guest blogger, Gita Gupte

"Mad Men" started off the week with a steamy new romance for Peggy. As we all predicted, the sparks between her and Abe were too hot to keep at bay, so the minute they reconnected, they started getting it on. We finally see Peggy in a happy relationship, which is refreshing because she has always dated duds.

While Peggy is in a blissful state of happiness, the office is in crisis. Cosgrove becomes aware of the fact that Roger has lost the Lucky Strike account and Roger, the pathetic character that he is, pretends as if he is hearing the news for the first time. Lucky Strike being his only account, Roger has become almost completely obsolete to this firm.

In the throes of this situation, Joan decides that she needs to end her affair with Roger: “I’m not the solution to your problems--I’m another problem.” She starts feeling guilty for cheating on her husband and does the right thing by calling it quits. When Roger gets home, he finds that his wife has done a great deal to make him feel better – she publishes his book and asks him to sign it for her. We haven’t seen much of her this season and what we have seen, we haven’t liked. But this was a genuine moment and you have to wonder--did it move her beyond social-climbing gold digger to perhaps a loving wife?

In the midst of all this upheaval, Trudy has her baby. And as noted earlier this season, Peter Campbell is a changed man. He no longer is out to do anything he can to succeed and has actually become a team player. Having just about enough of the secrets and lies dominating the work environment at SCDP, Peter is offered a job at CGC. Though he doesn’t seem as if he wants to take it, you never really know. I have a sense that there will be a huge Don/Pete fallout soon that will result in a possible exit by Peter Campbell for a better opportunity.

Perhaps the most significant development this week was the return of womanizing Don Draper. Though he has tried to be good, leopards can’t change their spots, and once a cheater, always a cheater. After getting in an ethical argument with Faye, when he asks her to compromise the integrity of her work to help him save clients, which she refuses to do, Don drops his pants for his secretary (who is all too happy to get entangled with her boss – because she seems to want to sleep her way to a new position).

We later learn that Faye loves Don (big surprise) and compromised her values to help him. Not only are we disgusted by the fact that Don cheated on this woman, but we are also appalled that he goes straight from one woman’s arms to another’s. I am pretty certain that this encounter with his secretary is not a one-time thing and that the old Don Draper is back for good.

Faye is his next road kill.