- A depressed Betty tries to make things uncomfortable for Don and Megan, Roger tries to take out some secret weapons for a meeting with a prospective Jewish client, and Don makes a snap judgment that angers the creative department.
- Betty is going to Weight Watchers to deal with her weight issue. Whether she wants to admit it or not, she is aware that her envy of Megan is part of her unhappiness and associated eating and weight gain. After an incident with Megan (of which Megan herself is unaware), Betty decides to use Sally as a pawn, which places Sally, Don and Megan in the middle of Betty's game, of which only Don seems aware. At the office, Roger is hustling for the Manischewitz wine account to show that he, beyond financing the company, is still useful in a day-to-day sense, and to show that Pete, who has lined up a potential major New York Times article featuring SCDP, is not the SCDP wunderkind he makes himself out to be. Roger's plan, the creatives for which he plans to pawn off as his own to the clients, includes the use of both Jane and Ginsberg, which doesn't sit well with Peggy or ultimately with Jane. And Don decides to go back into the creative realm, coming up with an idea at a brainstorming meeting with copywriters Peggy and Ginsberg on the Sno Ball account. Don ultimately shows how competitive he is against even those within the SCDP team.—Huggo
- Don decides to try his hand at coming up with an ad campaign for Sno Ball and finds himself in competition with Michael Ginsburg. Don has the upper hand however, always a good learning experience for a junior employee like Michael. Roger Sterling asks Michael to come up with some ideas for Manischewitz wines. Peggy Olson is less than pleased when she hears about it. A overweight Betty is attending Weight Watcher's but not having a great deal of success. She goes out of her way to create trouble for Don and Megan by telling Sally about Don's first wife, Anna. Megan ensures Don doesn't blow a fuse and even Sally, after a small hissy fit, doesn't let her mother get away with it.—garykmcd
- Mad Men - "Dark Shadows" - May 13, 2012
Fat Betty is back and she's working hard apparently to become less-Fat Betty. Her morning routine: one slice of blackened toast, half a grapefruit wedge, and several carefully weighed pieces of cheese.
Later she goes to pick up the kids at Don's and Megan's place. No one responds to the buzzer and she goes up to get them. Sally lets her in and she wanders around the apartment taking it all in, including the view. Which suddenly includes a view of Playmate-proportioned Megan in her bra in the other room. Betty looks away and Megan comes into the living room startled to see her. Betty says it's quite an apartment and Megan coolly says she thinks Betty's seen most of it. Megan kisses the kids goodbye.
Later, after she's put the kids to bed at her house, Betty rushes to the fridge and blasts a shot of Redi-Whip right from the can into her mouth. She shows great restraint though and spits it out.
It's a good thing because later when we join her at her weekly weigh-in at Weight Watchers she's lost half a pound. She gets up to share with the group that she had a bad week "out there" but still had a good week "in here" by losing weight so she feels proud.
Late one night Betty, looking blimp-like in her peignoir, catches Henry making a steak while she was sleeping. He admits he can't eat fish five times a week. She apologizes for being unable to control herself. He's understanding. He explains that he's having trouble at work. It turns out that John V. N. Lindsey isn't going to run but it looks like Rockefeller-- who he used to work for-- is, so he jumped ship for no reason. Betty reassures him. She says he's always thinking about other people and then gets mad no one's thinking about him but she is and says they'll work it out. It's very sweet and un-Betty-like.
What is much more Betty-like is what happens next. In the midst of checking Bobby's homework Betty sees a nice note that Don wrote to Megan on the back of one of Bobby's drawings. She gets so angry that she tells Sally about Anna Draper. Sally is making a family tree for class and had asked if Henry and Megan should be on it. Betty, in her anger, said yes, and that Anna Draper should too. Sally is confused that Don had a wife before Betty. Betty says she's surprised Megan didn't tell her and then angrily throws Bobby's drawing in the trash. (Or thinks she does. She misses the can.)
Sally is, obviously, upset about this and ends up being petulant and rude on her next visit to Don's and Megan's. When Don goes out with Gene and Bobby, Sally confronts Megan about Anna and asks her all kinds of aggresssive questions. Megan, flustered, tries, in a limited way to explain. Sally is very rude to her, calling her a phony and saying she thought she was her friend.
Later, when Don comes home Megan tells him what happens and he instantly freaks out and yells at her and Sally overhears them arguing. Don wants to call Betty but Megan stops him saying if Don calls her he's giving Betty exactly what she wants: the ability to poison them from 50 miles away. Don realizes she's right and they both apologize. The next day Don explain the best he can to Sally about Anna, that they were friends who were married for legal reasons and that it was never romantic. Sally remembers going to Anna Draper's house and Anna calling him Dick.
When Sally returns home she's wise enough not to give Betty any satisfaction. She tells her that Don spoke highly of Anna and showed her pictures. Betty is mad her plan didn't work.
At Thankgiving at the Francis house they all give thanks for various blessings. Betty is thankful that she has everything she wants and no one else has anything better.
Meanwhile, at the office Bert Cooper is feeling a bit like the odd man out so when he gets a line on some new business he pulls Roger aside and asks him to work on it confidentially. It's Manischewitz, they apparently wanted to be in the business of selling non-Kosher wine called Monarch.
Because it's Jewish-related business -- Roger wants to know how Jewish the clients are: "Fiddler on the Roof" are they onstage or in the audience?" -- Roger does two things. He asks Ginsberg to come up with some ideas for him and keep his mouth shut to the tune of a $200 cash bribe and he asks Jane, his Jewish, soon-to-be ex-wife, to come to the client dinner with him. She does considerably better than Ginsberg, getting a new apartment out of the deal. The dinner goes swimmingly thanks to Ginsberg's ideas but during the dinner the client's son Bernie openly hits on Jane the whole time. When Roger takes Jane back to her apartment they end up making love. The next morning she is mad at him. She wanted to leave the last place because of the sad memories and now Roger has tainted this place as well. He realizes she's right, feels terrible, and leaves.
Meanwhile, even though Roger asked him to keep it on the down low, Ginsberg told Peggy about the Manischewitz work. She is livid. She confronts Roger in the elevator saying her work on Mohawk was good. He says this was a specialty account. She points out that she isn't Jewish but she also isn't an airplane and she did that work. She accuses Roger of not being loyal. He says no one in business is.
In the Draper household we see a couple of night's and weekends with the kids: pillow fight, Megan showing Sally her acting classes like learning to cry, Sally being petulant, Don and Megan arguing about the Betty news.
We also see Megan run lines with her friend, who is auditioning for the popular 60's soap opera "Dark Shadows." Megan thinks soap opera in general is overly dramatic, and this one is particularly bad. Her friend freaks out and says it's easy for Megan to criticize sitting in the lap of luxury at 75th and Park but some of her friends have to work waiting tables between acting gigs. Megan apologizes.
On Thanksgiving we see Megan setting the dinner table. She announces her friend Julia got the part and wants champagne to go with dinner. Don wants to open the windows because it's so hot in the apartment but Megan tells him not to since there's a smog alert.
Don surprises his family by going in to work in the afternoon while everyone else is off. After seeing some off-the-cuff joke ideas in a folder on Ginsberg's desk for SnoBall ice cones Don starts to spitball into his Dict-a-phone like the old days. The next day in the pitch meeting everybody has a go. Don and Ginsberg have the best ideas. Don's idea is to riff on the phrase "snowball's chance in hell." He envisions an ad with the devil slurping down the drink and a thought bubble/voice over that says "even me." It's funny. Ginsberg's idea is a series of images of the type of people kids don't like getting hit in the face with a real snowball. Everybody likes this as well. Ginsberg is impressed Don could generate an idea like that off the cuff.
Don has Stan work up art for both of the ideas and shows them to Pete, Harry, and Ken who like them both but lean towards Ginsberg's idea as funnier. (They don't know whose idea is whose.) Ginsberg takes pleasure in this and also gives Don credit for still being so good after having not written for so long. When they go to present the ideas to Sno-Ball however, Don "forgets" Ginsberg's mock-ups in the cab. Sno-Ball bites on his devil concept though. When Harry tells Ginsberg what happened Ginsberg is livid. Harry points out they got the account so it doesn't really matter. The next day in the elevator Ginsberg confronts Don. Don also points out that they got the gig so Ginsberg should shut it. He says he doesn't like to show two ideas to the client because it's weak. Ginsberg says it's lucky he's got a million ideas. Don says it's a good thing that Ginsberg works for him then. Ginsberg says he feels bad for Don. Without missing a single beat Don replies "I don't think about you at all."
Finally, Pete is all full of excitement because a New York Times reporter called and inteviewed him for a story on hip advertising agencies. Later, he fantasizes about Beth come to his office in a fur coat and almost nothing else. Later, when he gets the New York Times Sunday Magazine and he's not in it he's livid. He calls Don to complain, Don tells Pete not to wake him up early to throw his failures in his face. Later, during a train ride Pete's buddy Howard explain how he's going to spend part of Thanksgiving in New York with his piece-on-the-side. Pete gets angry and says maybe he should do that and he'll go to Howard's house and screw his wife. Howard just laughs, wishes him luck with that, and thinks that Pete thinks that the grass is always greener on the other side.
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