'You People': Mad Men Recapped
Recently minted commercial director Sal Romano, meanwhile, has rebounded from his poorly received Patio campaign. Now he's working on a Lucky Strike spot while Pete Campbell puffs once and hacks a million times in the background. Harry Crane, the Lucky accounts man, stands by nervously. Sal wants the actor to look into the lens, make a connection. That's pretty much what cigarette scion Lee Garner Jr. wants from Sal as well, getting handsy in the editing room and launching the type of confrontation we've been anticipating since season one. We all know that the ultra-discreet Sal doesn't just put out for anyone (Baltimore bellhops notwithstanding), but we're about to learn that no one says "no" to Little Lee: He drunkenly calls Harry to get Sal off not only the Lucky Strike account, but off his desk at Sterling Cooper. And naturally, the most important part? Nobody can know.
It's a matter about a dozen levels above Harry's pay grade, and since Lee was wasted on whiskey and rejection anyway, what could it hurt to bury it? A lot, it turns out: At the sight of Sal in the conference room during the first commercial screening, Lee makes a 180 and flees the scene. "What just happened?" Pete wants to know. Roger Sterling has an even more urgent curiosity, coaxing the truth from Harry and shitcanning Sal on the spot. And why not? "Lee Garner Jr. wants you fired," Roger announces, simple as that. Don seethes when the situation escalates to him; Roger puts him "on notice that you're in over your head," and whether or not Don buys Sal's story, the climate is too polluted (and the account too valuable) for a liability like him to remain. But Don gets in one last acid jab of disgust at Sal -- "You people" -- to make his perspective and moral superiority crystal clear.
Yes, indeed, "You people." Classy, Don -- especially for a guy who shows up at Miss Farrell's house before work the next morning to finally close the deal with his daughter's elementary school teacher. Of course it works, setting Don up for an indiscretion far too close to home to make any sense at all, but still, "You people." He's still a few steps ahead of Henry Francis, who stands up Betty's fundraiser and then tries to get her to go to a motel room when she brings him his money. "You had to come to me because you're married," he says. Fail.
Twenty bucks says Betty offloads the fainting couch by next week's episode -- perhaps to poor Sal, who's reduced to drunkenly cruising a park after his last night in the office. He did make a few surreptitious photocopies after hours, though, for which we have five episodes remaining to see who those devastate, and how. Any ideas? And when did Conrad Hilton pass away, anyway?
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I don't think the "you people" meant gay people so much as the "moral" crowd who only think about doing what is right, and not about what needs to be done to get ahead.
He practically told Sal that he should've slept with the man because he is the client and the client is always right. And come on, how many gay people do you think Don knows in 1963 to make such a generalization. Everyone was in the closet. And what exactly is the generalization pertaining to gays that Don would be making?
I love it now that people believe Don has flexed his superiority "heterosexual" muscle everyone now thinks he's a jerk. A few episodes ago he was everyone's favorite dashing womanizer. And I would always ask myself if I was watching the same show as everyone else. This guy has been an asshole since the first episode, but I guess as always it's better to be a misogynist than homophobic.
Harry Crane isn't the Lucky Strike account guy; that would be Pete Campbell. Crane's the head of television.
Yes, I meant that Harry is on the television account for Lucky, and I realize now that only he could be on the TV account. So apologies.
I don't think anyone's ever thought of Don as anything more than a predatory misogynist sociopath. Which doesn't necessarily make him less fascinating. But I totally believe "you people" was targeted as a gay slur. It followed Sal swearing on his mother's grave, to which Don responded, "Are you sure you want to do that?" Don didn't believe him after what he saw in Baltimore.
I totally agree about that comment being a gay slur. And thanks for pointing out the ridiculous plot "coincidence" of Don driving past Miss Pre-Dawn Jog. What single women jogged before dawn's early light in 1963 for crying out loud? It actually made me think he was hallucinating, which might have been more interesting. Alas, no.
Conrad died in 1979 at age 91. The old bastard will probably outlive Don, as Sally will likely have killed him in his sleep by then.
The thing with Miss Farrell is going to end in more than tears. That news radio thing in Don's car about the two women dead in their apartment was spooky. She gives off kind of a brilliant-but-obsessive-suicide vibe. I'm probably wrong, but this is going to be ugly, and I can't wait to make popcorn for it.
I think the radio story was about the "Career Girl Murders", which were grisly and sparked off a lot of civil rights business when the NYPD tried (repeatedly) to frame an innocent black men for them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Career_Girls_Murders
Did the teaser for next week suggest, in its random way, that Don is about to ... leave his wife? We're going to need some more cast members soon, if so...
I would think that back in the day, women would be more likely to run by themselves in the dark than they are now. There may have been less runners back then, but the cluelessness was greater.
Oh, I've no doubt it was safer (and perceived as safe), but I think few non-athletes jogged for their health, right? The jogging craze didn't come until later, when Forrest Gump started it, amirite?
Signed, NeedsToGetaLife
Well, the 60's is the decade when women started crashing marathons as a form of protest since they weren't officially allowed, something this character would be attuned to. Also, to this day, you can't swing an ipod Nano amongst a flock of runners without hitting a teacher or three; It's got to be the most common profession amongst this sport.
If there's one thing I've learned about the teasers, it's to ignore them. To call them "misleading" is to call Don a "flirt".
Everything seems to be burning all around Don and all he can do is runaway to another woman. Obviously what Don did to Sal was wrong on a human level, but I wonder if Hilton had not pushed him so much in the episode if he would have attempted at least to save Sal. Full review of the episode.
http://th3tvobsessed.blogspot.com/2009/10/review-mad-men-season-3-episode-9-wee.html