Mad Men: Don’t Call

Draper’s latest liason becomes more complicated. Peggy and Paul get competitive over accounts. Don and Betty are grateful that “Caller ID” has yet to be invented and Sterling Cooper goes up for sale.

Don seems to be shacking up with teacher lady on the regular, and it’s getting too close for comfort. As much as he seems to show his sly displeasure with her creeping closer into his real life, he secretly enjoys getting so close to the fire.

Don’s kid picks up the phone and the caller quickly hangs up, leading both Don and Betty to speculate if the person on the other line is their paramour. The kids! What about the kids?? It’s a sad, subtle reminder that in an era before the divorce generation, the kids are always the one in the middle, left with the brunt of the radioactivity after the bomb drops.

Don confronts the teacher on his train on the way to work and she threatens to leave, but he quickly dissolves in her puppy dog eyes when she tells him “I don’t care about you marriage, your work or any of that. As long as I know you’re with me.” Oh Don, you really can’t help yourself.

Paul wakes up drunk on his office couch, thinking he had some wonderful notes for the account he’s working on with Peggy. His stress to try and keep up with the ambitious rising star is causing him to loose control of himself. Word of advice: stick to the weed, Paul. You’ll still fall asleep but you’ll always know where the papers are.

London calls and while Bert Cooper is ambivalent about joining the 40th anniversary party for Sterling Cooper, they drop the bomb on Lane that they’re looking to sell the company and “expect all the flowers in the vase.” The firm is doing quite well and London wants to leverage the party to drum up interest in finding a buyer, leaving Lane to “pour the honey on” and get Bert to join.

Don is to receive an award “for his humanity” to the amusement of Roger Sterling, who reveals he saved Don from a job where he was alternating between night school and working at a fur company. A fur company!

Betty rings up her gentleman caller and asks if he rang her the other day. He’s annoyed at her accusation, especially since she’s put far more distance between them than Don has between himself and his lady friend.

Betty later finds keys in the wash that lead her to find some of Don’s deepest secrets. A divorce certificate and pictures of estranged children.

Meanwhile, Don offers to drive his lover’s little brother to the job she set up for him, but little does she know little brother isn’t taking the job she set up for him. He’s worried that his epilepsy will always prevent him from making a real life for himself. Don further complicates things by helping out his lover’s brother, giving him his number and telling him to call if he needs anything. Don’s life is starting to resemble one of those Russian nesting dolls, one appearance inside of another, inside of another.

Peggy saves Paul’s butt, using a seemingly throwaway chinese proverb he uttered, “the faintest ink is better than the best memory” to build it into a brilliant idea to show how a telegram beats a phone call for lasting memories “You can’t frame a phone call.”

The big Sterling Cooper gala concludes the episode, with Cooper presenting Don his award and lays it on thick, singing Don’s praises. As the episode closes, we see Betty giving Don a stink eye that could clear a room. She’s holding on to something she can hardly contain and it’s about to come to a head.