'Who Hates Nudes?': Mad Men Recapped

John Slattery, ladies and gentlemen! The silver-topped Mad Men regular made his series directing debut Sunday with flying colors -- both figuratively and literally, as the episode was also among the best-shot in three-plus seasons to date. And they didn't even have to slum in California or introduce outrageous new subplots to do it. Somebody! Unjump the shark!

The failures of last week's episode have been catalogued and dissected to death already, so let's just pick up at the beginning: Don and Roger have an angry Lee Garner Jr. on their hands. Or at least on their phone. As if there's any other kind -- or as if Garner can't be somewhat excused for the existential woes suddenly gripping his business. It's February 1965, an early note from Stephanie (back to her old expository-tool ways) to Don reminds us, and already we're starting to see the effects of regulatory crackdown on the tobacco industry: Ads showing teen smokers, pro athletes and/or "provocative angles" are out, which has the ad men brainstorming new tie-ins like horse racing ("No, Lee... the jockey smokes the cigarette") and others. A quick-thinking Don hits the "eject" button, contriving a fire in the neighborhood and leaping off the call with Roger. Try it with your client/boss some time; it probably works especially well over instant message.

That said, there were more metaphorical fires all over the office, beginning with Lane and Roger's order to Pete to dump Clearasil, i.e. his father-in-law Tom's low-rent skin-care brand that presents sort of an oblique conflict with Freddy Rumsen's Pond's Cold Cream account. Urged to "throw [himself] on the grenade," Pete takes a bar meeting with Tom, who has a grenade of his own, disclosing the news that Trudy -- finally -- is pregnant. Thanks, Pops! It was one of those standard-issue narrative misreads -- two characters knowing something, one drawing his gun, the other drawing back. Yet Slattery's use of inward tracking shots --kind of a rarity for Mad Men -- put an exquisite point on this and other scenes in the episode, isolating characters in ways that let scenes just die out without having to literally, physically isolate them or simply cut away on a line, which has been happening more and more as the series slides into soap-opera territory. Pete just gazes into the space over his champagne, unable to break his bad news. But it'll be for the best.

In any case, this is horrifying stuff for Trudy, who had her own occasion for the announcement. Not-so-horrifying: the Clearasil dumpage. "You needed him and now you don't." That's business; if any Mad Men wife has ever gotten that from the start, Trudy has. (Personal business, though? Not so much.) As Joey the Part-Time Copywriter will acknowledge to Peggy later on, "I would get her so pregnant." Distasteful? Definitely. Perceptive? Most definitely. She is a Grade-A keeper.

More about Peggy in a second, but quickly: Were we glad or kind of vexed to see Ken Cosgrove return? Aside from the clipped, pleasing familiarity of his delivery or his direct engagement with Pete ("Don't say sh*tty things about me behind my back"), I'm not so sure he served much purpose beyond a clever-for-'65 joke about McCann having more retarded people than a state hospital and sighing the broad declaration that he'd rather be a "slave to creative than to some old fart." Like that won't hang in the air for the next month of viewing. But the subtext of their meeting -- that Pete could (and would, in fact) aggressively corral Clearasil's companion brands from his father-in-law -- gave Pete a rare bit of leverage over Ken. He would be a slave to neither an old fart nor creative -- which amount to about the same thing in Pete's world, anyway. Captivity is captivity regardless of who minds your cage, and I guess when you can't pout your way out, go for the balls.

So. Peggy. Miss Olson attracts the neatest people, doesn't she? Or, alternatively, she has excellent elevator timing, catching a ride with a young woman clutching a folder stamped "REJECTED." "Sorry, that doesn't look good," Peggy frowns. Not to worry, the young woman, introducing herself as Joyce, explains -- she's just an assistant photo editor at Life responsible for dispatching some nudes that were vetoed for publication. "Who hates nudes?" Peggy asks, gazing at the black-and-white images. (NB: This is the "brief nudity" about which viewers were advised in a disclaimer before the show? Meta! How far we've come in 45 years!) The feminine bonding time is a prelude to something; you know these women haven't seen the last of each other, but the context of their introduction portends something a little more... friendly.

And indeed, invited later by Joyce to a downtown party, Peggy gets an eyeful of vague Warholia, a couple lungsful of pot and a nibble on the ear from her new pal. Yowza! "I have a boyfriend," Peggy responds. "He doesn't own your vagina," Joyce says. "But he's renting it." Haw. It's not even the best line of the night, but it does precipitate even more ingratiation among Peggy and this hip new crowd. The problem is that she can't help but swoon at all of them, from photographer David Kellogg ("Love your nudes!") to a lurching beatnik named Abe, with whom she's stuck in a closet -- and then a liplock, because obviously -- after the fuzz shuts down the festivities. To the extent they bust her chops over her line of work ("For anyone to sell their soul, they have to have one"), there's a certain spiritual attraction they can't really deny. When Joyce finds the pair, it's hardly cause for jealousy or propriety; it's just what friends do for each other -- followed, a little less obviously -- by a giggly sprint through the winter night.

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