Everyweek, Chris Piascik draws something from the episode to go with the recap. This week calls to mind the conversation between Peggy and Don in the diner.

I’m not going to lie, I could have used an evening off from Mad Men tonight. It was, however, one of the best episodes of the season. Mad Men had been putting up good episodes all season, but this was a ‘wow’ episode. Don, Peggy, Don and Peggy, Duck. Wow. Probably the most passion we’ve seen to date, too. Date of the episode: May 25, 1965. This was the 2nd Ali/Liston fight and took places in Lewiston, ME. Is it me, or are there WAY more historical events referenced this season?
-Two off-color racial/ethnic jokes in the first minute or so of the show? I don’t remember two all season. Accident? Doubt it. Lazy? Maybe. I hope this isn’t the show continuing to turn into a caricature of itself. And what’s with all the swears. It’s like AMC is showing off to be edgy. (Or did office swearing rise in popularity in 1965?)
-Oh, Ida Blankenship, you hellcat. It’s almost as if Don is doing penance. She can’t even make coffee well.
-The Joe Namath ad pitched by Peggy and the gang was actually pretty well conceived, funny even. Most of the pre-pitches aren’t that thought out. Speaking of the gang. Danny hadn’t event started last episode, and now he’s a full fledged member of said gang? They’re so welcoming!
-There was a bit of the old vs new in this episode. Don doesn’t like Joe Namath (endorsements are lazy) or Cassius Clay (if you have to say you’re the greatest…). They’re too flashy, but they are what advertising will become.
-When did Roger and Don become so chummy? This seems like it happened in the last 2-3 episodes. Were we supposed to forget the, “Keep him away from me” from last year? Also, I haven’t seen him drink something brown since his heart attack.
-”I’m glad that this is an environment where you’re not afraid to fail.” The season wasn’t really building to this, but last week did foreshadow it. In an episode where Duck Phillips, showed us where Don could be headed in a couple years, Don and Peggy continued to solidify their connection. I want to say something here about Peggy following in Don’s footsteps, but it’s not totally clear how to describe that. “How long are you going to go on like this?” Peggy seems to see there’s a problem. Maybe she’s the first, or maybe she’s the only one acknowledging it, but Don is in a bad way.
-”I give you money, you give me ideas.” “That’s what the money is for!” “Everything to you is an opportunity.” “I’m sorry about your boyfriend, OK?” I liked these lines. Don gives Peggy opportunity, but when she acts entitled, he bristles. We haven’t really seen her do anything good this year, why does she think she’s so great? Also, Peggy, remember to lock the door when you take a nap at work. Otherwise, Stan will wake you up with a whistle.
-What do you suppose the mouse signified and Don’s line about there being another way out of the office? “You know, there’s a way out of this room we don’t know about.”
-”Trains leaving the station, get on board. Woo Woo.” “Peg, I’m falling apart.” Wow, Duck, wow. You get fired from Grey and think it’s a good idea to start your own agency? You need to get your shit together. And that is NOT a euphemism for pooping in Roger Sterling’s office. It may have been Don’s lowest point of the season when he had to cry uncle to Duck. That is LOW.
-Peggy goes to the bathroom before heading off to dinner and gets continually kicked in the balls, first by another secretary and then by Pete Campbell’s wife. “Well, you’re doing alright, aren’t you?” “You know, 26 is still very young.” But then, “Is it any different than living with Pete?” you go, girl! Mark inviting Peggy’s family to dinner wins the title of most awkward family dinner.
-”You know what gets you over stuff like that? Drinking.” Roger continuing the role of classic comic relief and witty one-liners. “Come on, Ida was a hellcat? Cooper lost his balls? Roger’s writing a book?” And that, of course.
-”There’s no use crying over fish in the sea.” I guess Danny mixes his cliches?
-This episode featured Don opening up to Peggy more than he had to almost anyone all series. “It’s a mouse, I grew up on a farm.” “More of a yokel than me, even.” Korea. Don saw his father dies. I guess it’s only remarkable because it happened so quickly, but Don was REALLY sharing. Wonder if it felt good. To say nothing of Anne dying, and Peggy seeing him call Stephanie and start bawling. “The only person in the world who really knew me.”
-When Don and Peggy were eating in the diner and Peggy said she didn’t know the difference between good and awful, Don used a TON of cliches to say there was very little difference. I have to imagine this was on purpose. Otherwise, it’s time to start giving back Emmys. “You know you’re cute as hell.” Is there anyone who would suggest Don thinks Peggy is cute/beautiful?
-”You don’t want to start giving me morality lessons, do you? People do things.” This never happened…
-Don saw Anne has a ghost. Just putting this here so we remember it later, not sure it was very important. It does sort of recall the flashbacks from Don’s childhood, though
-And at the end of the episode, the door was opened. If we were watching this entire season at once, I bet we could point back to this episode as an ending to the first half of the season. Or maybe I’m misinterpreting it. How did you see the open door and what is its import?
What did I miss?

This is a list of the pitchers with the top 10 strikeout rates among starters 22 or younger with at least 50 innings pitched. See Washington National’s phenom Stephen Strasburg on there at number 2?

1 Kerry Wood
2 Stephen Strasburg
3 Dwight Gooden
4 Mark Prior
5 Oliver Perez
6 Sam McDowell
7 Mark Prior
8 Scott Kazmir
9 Oliver Perez
10 Rick Ankiel

Thanks, Jonah

You have let me down, internet. Earlier in the week, a to do was made about the artist Sally Davies and her series of 137 daily photographs of a McDonald’s Happy Meal. The upshot is that McDonald’s Happy Meals when left out on the counter don’t really change much (as most food wouldn’t in a low humidity environment). There’s supposed to be a big shock.

Let me tell you, reader, there was. The first time I saw this story. On March 3rd of this year, BabyBites.info posted a photo of their year old Happy Meal (2 weeks later, BoingBoing posted via Consumerist). Three weeks after that, Sally Davies started her daily photo project. I don’t know if Sally Davies was inspired to start her project after seeing any of these stories, but even if she wasn’t I can’t be the only one who remembered we saw similar pictures 6 months ago. It’s not even like this was last year. I’m going to go take a minute, you get back to me when you want to share original stuff I won’t care about 5 minute from now.

Updated:
OK, OK, people have been leaving McDonald’s burgers out forever. Jason reminded me of this, while Hubs reminded me of this Supersize Me bonus. And we must never forget one of the original internet experiments, the stinkymeat project.

Roger Federer hit another shot between his legs. Now he’s just showing off. Here’s last year’s.

Via Jonah Keri.

Recently, the Tampa Bay Rays wore plaid blazers, or BRayzers, on a road trip.

Recently, Alan Cumming wore a plaid suit to the Creative Arts EMMYs.

Recently, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones went back on tour.

These can not all be a coincidence.

I don’t know how to start this week’s recap, so I’ll just remind you that every week, I write a Mad Men recap, while Chris Piascik draws one.

-”It’s an idiom. Did you know that?” Don and Peggy are barely able to conceal their disdain in the interview with Roger’s wife’s cousin who wants a job. His book is all one idea and then ads he’s pulled out of magazines for inspiration. “Don’t you ever tear things out of magazines?” We’ve seen Don tear things out of magazines at least once. That fact foreshadows the theme of the episode. Nice to see the Lemon VW ad make another appearance.
-”It’s a relief to see someone worse than me.” Peggy has never been happy for long. She has a chip on her shoulder about her status in the firm and did at Sterling Cooper, as well. This is probably what drives her, huh?
-They’re hitting the Roger not doing anything pretty hard this episode. In 2 scenes he’s rambling about Howdie Doodie and chocolate ice cream respectively. I guess he’s writing a book now? Also, are Roger and Don friends again? They seemed pretty jovial today, even before the award.
-Flashing back to Don selling furs and the story of how it all started. We’d seen a flashback to that time in Don’s life before, but it hadn’t been fleshed out. Roger looked younger, and they changed up the wardrobe. I hadn’t really thought of this before, but it seems that Don made his way to the top of Sterling Cooper in about 6-8 years, and probably less. Mad Men Season 1 started around March, 1960, and the Korean War ended in 1953. Even if Don was among the first wave of soldiers in Korea, there would have had to be some time for convalescence, time to get found by Anne Draper selling used cars, time to work all that out with her, to move to NYC, etc, etc.
-Don was super eager to get a job and included a book of his work in the fur coat to Joan. So I guess she’s been there for a while.
-”Make it simple, but significant.” Indeed.
-I liked Roger ripping on Ted Chaough (”Isn’t that a lot of extra letters” and “Chagagag”). Not really sure why Ted is so uppity.
-”Don’t talk to me right now.” Don is so mean to Pete Campbell. I think everyone loves it!
-Oh, hello, Duck Phillips. Did someone over-serve you?
-”Who claps for themselves?” The addition of an Art Director character was a bit jarring. Sal played such a big role in the firm (and in several episodes) that it seems like we should have heard from this character before tonight. In any case, I like how Peggy puts him in his place stripping for him and forcing him to concede the point. “Win the prize for the smuggest bitch in the world.”
-You all saw that after both Don and Roger were holding Joan’s hand under the table, Don kissed Joan on the lips before going up to the stage, right? She was definitely surprised. It was more than just a celebratory kiss. The victory kicked off something of a bender. During the Life cereal pitch, Don was super-eager and pretty full of himself. He wanted to prove he could close a pitch while drunk (which I’m actually surprised hasn’t been shown before), and kept rattling off lines until he used one he had heard earlier in the day during the terrible interview. Oops.
-”If everyone set?” “That’s my word for it.” Oh, Lane.
-More Mrs. Blankenship comic relief. She wears a wig and was surly. Why hasn’t she been replaced? She’s the Jar Jar Binks of Mad Men.
-”Award or no award you’re still Don Draper.” “Whatever that means.” I thought we might get through one episode without a question of identity. I guess not.
-”You’ve crossed the border from lubricated to morose.” Ladies and gentlemen, your designated moral compass, Joan!
-Good to have Ken Cosgrove back and Pete Campbell feeling threatened. Cosgrove good naturedly dealing with it. Campbell obviously feels threatened, and always has. Would he be Ken’s boss?
-”Then he sucks on Vick’s.” Real subtle, guys.
-Another subtle moment in the episode was Don badgering Roger into letting him buy him a drink. Probably reading too much into this, but Roger didn’t seem totally comfortable with drinking with Don so early in the day. Maybe he was playing it up, but wouldn’t it be an interesting wrinkle if Don was the bad influence all these years? This idea was reinforced a bit with the scene between Don and Doris. He’s obviously been overdoing it for a long time, even before getting to Sterling Cooper. Though Doris called him Dick at during the scene. When could that have been? I thought he ran away from home and went straight into the army. He was Don Draper when he came home. Someone help me with this one.
-Roger > Don > Peggy > Danny. This progression was pretty clear through the episode and is, I think, the main theme from tonight. Everybody comes from somewhere, gets their start somewhere. Roger didn’t remember hiring Don because he was drunk. Don was drunk and used Danny’s line forcing his hire. Roger told Don he forgot to tell Roger he couldn’t have done it without him. According to Peggy, Don wouldn’t have been able to do it without her because it was her idea. And he wouldn’t have been able to seal Life Cereal without Danny’s line. Danny is really, really short.
-Don is still out of control, but on the evil scale, he didn’t really move backwards at all, and you have to consider that a positive. He did forget to pick up his kids, but as long as he’s not hitting on the nieces of dear friends, or sleeping with his secretary, he’s winning, right?

+++
Update: The first 2 comments below bring up an interesting point that I had considered, but decided to interpret differently. Basically they suggest that at 2 points in the episode, characters got into situations where they blacked out. Roger either agreed to hire Don during a blackout, or Don convinced him that he had. Also, Don blacked out and picked up a waitress as Dick Whitman. I don’t really want to believe that Mad Men would resort to blackouts as a plot device, which is why I interpreted it differently. I read the Dick Whitman waitress pick up as a flashback to some time in the past. On the other hand, there’s too much to imply if we’re to believe Don made up the story about Roger hiring him, hoping that Roger would forget. Lots to speculate on this week.

Update 2:
On having occasion to watch the episode again, I’m thinking that it is the same weekend and Don was so wasted, he did tell Doris his name was Dick… Also, I didn’t realize this before, but the Life Cereal pitch had notes of the Kodak Carousel pitch. Nostalgia. It was funny to hear the Kodak Carousel pitch drunken and rushed.

This fantastic collection of subway photos from 1970’s and 80’s New York City are great to look at.

“I wanted to transform the subway from its dark, degrading, and impersonal reality into images that open up our experience again to the color, sensuality, and vitality of the individual souls that ride it each day.” In “Subway”, passengers of the city’s subterranean world are portrayed in detail, revealing the interplay of its inner landscape and outer vistas, set against a gritty, graffiti-strewn background and displayed in tones that Davidson describes as “an iridescence like that I had seen in photographs of deep-sea fish”.

This was all over Tumblr the other day. It’s via them.

“It got me under the water but not much because I started kicking at its neck and I came back up again and I’m punching its nose again, punching, punching, punching.”

It’s pouring rain out and has been for the last 2 days. The fire alarm went off about an hour and a half ago. We all went out for 20 minutes, got soaked, and then they told us we could go back in, but the alarm “wouldn’t reset for 15 more minutes.” It went on for another 55 minutes. Jon made a video of office antics so you can get a taste of what it was like. I’m the one with tissue in my ears. It worked.

Ragbag decided to determine how much you’d need to be making in a year before it’s not worth your time to pick up a coin. Pretty cool.

Via Cosmo Catalano