In Honor of Bryan Batt's Mad Men Departure, 3 Other Characters We Want Brought Back

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Just as we'd suspected, Mad Men's Sal Romano (played by Bryan Batt) won't be returning to the brown, bedroom-flanked corridors of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce for season four. Don Draper's gruff dismissal of Sal's emerging homosexuality culminated with the character's firing, and now one of the most provocative players on the show is gone without fanfare. Mad Men has eliminated excellent roles before their time in the past, and now we honor three sullen presences whose stints in bitchin' cinematography ended without fitting resolve.


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Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff)

Don's most intriguing sexual conquest remains Rachel Menken, the wealthy storeowner's daughter from season one who was both his intellectual superior and romantic slave. After an instance when Don fled to her house and proposed -- in one of his patented "I start life anew now" blitzes -- they run off together, Rachel talked sense into him, pitied her own feelings, and soon found herself brushing past Don at a restaurant without much acknowledgment. Not only was Rachel a seductive (and beautiful) screen presence, but she's had some of the best dialogue in the show's history. Ahem: "They taught us at Barnard about that word, 'utopia.' The Greeks had two meaning for it: 'eu-topos,' meaning the good place, and 'u-topos,' meaning the place that cannot be."


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Father Gill (Colin Hanks)

The guitar-playing, mildly progressive priest from season two "prayed" for Peggy Olson's soul a lot. This may have to do with Gill being the horniest character in Mad Men history. It's all bubbling under. Or over, several times a day. (Man of the cloth, indeed?) He may not have appreciated Peggy's flier ideas, but this provocative young presence's arc seemed destined to prove more than what it did -- that Peggy didn't want a savior. Hopefully we'll see him again in an episode entitled Vatican II: Back in the Habit.


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Jimmy Barrett (Patrick Fischler)

Has there been a better character on Mad Men? This old-timey comedian and unrepentant misogynist, who once excoriated a company president's wife to her face for being overweight, ended up flaying Don after realizing he slept with his wife, Bobbie. Behold, the most succinct appraisal of Mr. Draper yet: "You don't screw another man's wife. You're garbage, and you know it." Though that storyline ended with quite a punch (heh), Jimmy's exit from our lives was not so climactic. Come back to us, you moral roller coaster of a man!



Comments

  • bea says:

    Rachel Menken is the most overrated Man Men character ever.

  • Louis Virtel says:

    Go on! Defend Sally Draper!

  • OldTowneTavern says:

    I agree. I was so tired of her whining. "Why am I with you? You're married. Why am I here?" I thought "Well, you could always leave." And then thankfully, she did.

  • OldTowneTavern says:

    You try to lisp your way through that many lines!

  • OldTowneTavern says:

    I forgot to mention, that Rachel Menken reminded me of how George Costanza described his humorless mother. "Not a ha ha. Not a tee hee."

  • Max says:

    How dare you neglect to name Paul Kinsey? He was a far more interesting character than Menken and Father Gill.
    For shame!

  • NP says:

    So much hatred for Rachel! I liked Rachel. I do miss Jimmy Barrett, and I thought Bobbie was great too in her own way.

  • bea says:

    Maybe Henry Francis sends her to boarding school!

  • NP says:

    Maybe he's not totally gone yet?

  • lgn says:

    Menken is the only woman that Draper had any chemistry with. His conquests are endless and endlessly uninteresting.

  • Louis Virtel says:

    He's not formally dismissed yet. If he does leave the show, that would suck. And if Cosgrove ever leaves, I'm poisoning myself.

  • Maggie says:

    I'm so impressed that you quoted "RACHEL MENKEN'S" "eutopos"/"utopos" line from the BABYLON episode in Season 1. That metaphor never fails to move me.
    You really get it...thank you.

  • Rafaela says:

    Rachel was amazing! The only woman that could take Don by the balls and drag him all over with it.
    Too bad she moved on. I had to start watching Sons of Anarchy to catch a glimpse of the talented Maggie Siff (thank God the second season was great). BUT, just like in Mad Men, she should have more screen time.

  • bea says:

    "The only woman that could take Don by the balls and drag him all over with it."
    Hardly. Bobbie Barrett did it better. And Betty did it better than anyone.

  • Blanche says:

    OK...it's October now and Season 4 just ended.
    Do we still feel the same way about Sally? Her performances this season were incredibly good.