Pete is out to dinner with his hot real estate agent, Bonnie, when he runs into George Payton from Vicks. He’s at Burger Chef now and business cards are exchanged.
Don arrives to find the office empty. Zombie apocalypse? Or… a new computer is arriving. And it’s going to take up a very large footprint. A footprint the size of the creative lounge. In the words of Ginsburg, “Harry Crane took a huge dump and we got flushed down the toilet.”
Roger’s first ex-wife pops in to let Roger know that their daughter has run off to a hippie commune. She needs Roger to retrieve her, but I’m guessing she doesn’t know how deep off of the deep end Roger has fallen. I think we may have our first real hippie problem. I was hoping it’d be Sally Draper, but I’ll take Margaret Sterling instead.
Lou calls Peggy into his office. He’s giving her a raise. And, he’s putting her in charge of Burger Chef. She’ll have to work with Don, and… does this make Peggy Don’s boss? She calls Don into her office, which is fun. And she’s drinking whiskey, which is cruel. She takes charge of the meeting by inviting Don to sit on the couch with some young creative to announce that they are both on her team. Her team. Don is giving Peggy a stone cold stare. She needs fifty tag lines by Monday. Don does not take it well and, upon returning to his office, immediately sacrifices a typewriter.
Rather than attend Peggy’s Burger Chef meeting on Monday morning with fifty tag lines, Don is playing solitaire and he has precisely zero taglines. This poses a strategic problem for Peggy. She decides to move the meeting to the end of the day and tells the young creative to give her twenty-five more.
Later that day, Don reads a book and trades yuks with the computer installation guy whose business is booming. It gives Don an idea. He wants to pitch new business to the computer guys. He brings it to Bert Cooper who is basically like, “GTFO, we were fine without you, just go back to the dead guy’s office and collect your paycheck.” Don leaves, then doubles back for a bottle of booze which he pours into a can of soda. Wow. Don really doesn’t have anything up his sleeve. This is a first.
Roger drives up to the hippie commune with his ex-wife. Margaret’s new name is Marigold and she’s wearing unflattering and unwashed clothing. Her mother gives it to her straight: these people are lost, and on drugs, and have venereal diseases. Marigold turns on her mother, and Roger decides to stick around a while to try and sort it out. He gives the car keys to his ex and I’m guessing Roger has finally found his people.
Drunk Don takes an office nap and calls up Freddie to go see a baseball game. Then it’s nap time again. When Freddie arrives, he wobbles Don out of the office as surreptitiously as possible and brings him back to Don’s increasingly disheveled digs to sober up. Don sleeps off his drunkenness of his couch. When he wakes up, Freddie is there to make him coffee and give him a lecture about his second chance. “Do the work, Don.” It’s exactly what a clammy, cruddy Don needs to hear.
Over at the culty commune, Roger comes to his senses. “It’s time to leave Shangri La, baby.” Roger understands the temptation, but her son needs his mother. Roger grabs her, tosses her in a truck or, oops! Into the mud. “How could you just leave him, he’s your baby.” She equates leaving her son behind to Roger working through her birthdays, but this is not that. Roger walks off, defeated. And muddy.
Don Draper is back. And so is Peggy. “I’ll have your tags by lunch.”
Next week, Lou is pissed, and Betty is confused.
Reprinted from HauteTalk.com
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