Mad Men: Indian Summer (2007)
Season 1, Episode 11
9/10
The slimming contraption
11 January 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Don Draper and his team get a challenge as they receive a new product that is trying to come into the market. Without an objective campaign, the slimming device will be useless. All men want to have Don give the device, which is a series of vibrating circles that work on individual muscles and it's attached to a small portable small case, to Peggy. She is a bit on the overweight side, so they figure, as a joke, to have her test it for them, not having too much faith in what it really can do. Peggy feels flattered until she tries it at home. This thing she feels is like a vibrator, although only used externally.

Don is seen in bed with Rachel Menken. They are too involved with one another. On the other hand, Betty Draper, alone in suburbia, gets the visit of an air conditioning salesman who wants to interest in having some of the units he is selling installed in her house. It's hot, Betty, allows the salesman to step inside. She likes the man, but she thinks better and tells him to get out. Later on, as she is doing the laundry the memory of the handsome salesman will haunt her thoughts. When she leans into the vibrating washing machine and recalls his face. Later Don will scold her for letting a stranger in the house.

Roger Sterling, having been released from the hospital after his heart attack, comes to the office accompanied by his wife Mona. He looks pale; everyone in the office notices how bad he looks. Bertram Cooper had asked him to come in to be at the meeting with Lee Garner Jr, whose Lucky Strike account is up for a revision. Cooper wants Christine to work with Roger to see if she can make him appear more presentable. Roger confesses their sex was the best he ever experienced, but Christine is too unhappy to really care. At the meeting Roger suffers another heart attack.

Bertram Cooper calls Don to his office and offers him a partnership, something that he wasn't expecting so soon. In view of Roger's getting worse, he is the right man to keep the agency afloat. Reptilian Pete Campbell, makes it known he wants to be considered by Don to a promotion. He is in good company because everyone else in the office wants to be appointed to the position Don Draper will leave.

Peggy has a dinner date with Carl Winter, a down to earth man that seem to like her. Peggy lies about her job to Carl, something that doesn't make much sense. She appears to be showing off to this nice guy, for no reason at all. Peggy, who has by now written a copy about the vibrating device entrusted to her, gives Don Draper and the creative team a good presentation. At the end, she asks for a five dollars a week raise.

The end of this installment of the series finds Pete Campbell in Don Draper's office imagining how he would be in it. A package addressed "personal" to Don Draper arrives while Pete is sitting at the desk. He thinks about it and decides to steal it.

Tim Hunter directed this episode. Written by Tom Palmer and Mattew Weiner, this show had a lot in it. The promotion of Don Draper brings the worse in most of the other men. Back stabbing, no doubt, will be used by all in order to be tapped for Don's position. Jo Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, January Jones, John Slattery, Robert Morse and Vincent Kartheiser are prominently featured. John Cullum and Talia Balsam have some excellent moments.
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