Mad Men Season 5 Episode 11: The Other Woman

 Joe Chiarenzelli is an editor at The Gadfly Press and wishes he was Don Draper.

             Mandy Lafond is a graduate of St. Lawrence University with a degree in Philosophy and a minor in Asian studies.  She’s currently working as a Naturalist at the Seacoast Science Center. In her spare time she likes philosophizing, playing with her pet rabbit and reading Wikipedia for fun.

            Joe:

This episode points out that Pete is not the only “grimy little pimp” at SCDP, Roger, Lane, and Bert can all be held in that category. But, I’ll get to that in a minute. The opening “previously on Mad Men montage” clearly illustrates the theme that will permeate throughout “The Other Woman”, the power relationship between Men, Money, and Women (be they human or Jaguar). We open on the writer’s room, SCDP has hired some freelancers to help Don and Ginsberg come up with a pitch for their upcoming Jaguar presentation. Peggy has been shunted to the side and put in charge of the other, lesser, accounts and is clearly envious when she sees Joan delivering a lobster dinner from the Palm, which Michael looks at with great disappointment being (I assume) the only Jewish person on staff.
               

Pete and Kenny are taking out one of the big business car dealers, Herb Rennet. He lectures them on the amount of clout he has in the industry and suggests that they will not only need a dynamite campaign, but will also have to go the extra mile. This kicks the most powerful storyline in the whole episode, when Herb and the other executives were being given a tour of the offices he had set his sights on their tour guide, a certain Mrs. Joan Harris (built like a B-52). Kenny tries to tell Herb she’s married, but Pete cuts him off. When Herb implies their presentation is doomed without a tryst with Joan, Pete moves to make it happen. 

            Pete goes to Joan with a false request for her to help him deliver some bad news about the Jaguar account, namely that Herb has requested something that the firm is not willing to provide. As Joan questions him about it, Pete (falsely) begrudgingly reveals the details of what Herb wants. As Pete puts more and more pressure on her, she realizes what he’s doing so he comes right out and says it, “Do you consider Cleopatra a prostitute? What does it take to make you a Queen?” She replies with, “You can’t afford it.” an obvious attempt to dismiss him, but Pete only takes it as meaning there is a price.

            Pete then calls the partners together to suggest that they meet Herb’s demands and offer Joan money to fulfill them.  Roger replies with surprise (seeing as he had offered her money for the care of their child), Lane with outrage and fear (over needing to extend their credit again, since his money laundering at Christmastime), and Bert with Randian unflappability. Don, alone, finds the idea completely abhorrent, says the work will win it by itself, and storms out of Pete’s office. Once he leaves Pete convinces the rest of the partners to go with the idea and offer money to Joan.

             Lane knows that he can’t extend their line of credit any further, so, under the guise of helping her he makes Joan aware of the plan to offer her $50,000 dollars. He then points out to her that she can get far more for her efforts if she demands to be given a 5% stake in the firm and a partnership. Joan, after returning to her apartment and finding her refrigerator broken and uncertainty about her husband’s ability to provide her with enough money to take care of her child, returns the next day and puts this new valuation on her compliance to Pete. She demands papers by the end of the day and Pete struggles with the logistics of pimping her out. When he offers a handshake for their agreement Joan she turns to leave, parting by asking, “Which one is he?” Pete replies that, “He’s not bad.” As she walks out of the room she says, “He’s doing this isn’t he?”

   Mandy:

               Meanwhile back at the Draper place, Megan is lying on the bed reading a script. When asked about his day, Don responds he’s going to “watch Carson and cry myself to sleep”. In an effort to come up with an idea for the Jaguar campaign, Don seeks out Megan’s advice, however Megan doesn’t seem too keen on the idea of the Jaguar as a “mistress” (though Don tells her that word won’t be used in the ad). “A wife is like a Buick you keep in the garage,” she laments, and it’s becoming clear to me that Megan is becoming increasingly dissatisfied being married to Don. Though Don hasn’t strayed, it’s obvious that Megan won’t tolerate infidelity the way Betty did. In the course of explaining the audition process, Megan reveals that she’d have to go to Boston for a few months for rehearsals, while Don had been under the impression that she’d be staying in New York. Furious, Don tells her she can’t just up and leave, and while Don’s said he doesn’t want to get in the way of her dreams, this time she may have crossed the line. Things are not looking good for their relationship in my opinion, and if push came to shove, I think Megan just may choose an acting career over Don. Finally, at her audition, before being asked to read, Megan is asked to turn around while the audition committee seems to examine her body. Hearkening back to Joan’s predicament, Megan is also being objectified, and it seems that the auditioners are more concerned with her appearance than any talent she has.

                 Peggy on the other hand, has been relegated to the sidelines of SCDP as you mentioned, in part owing to her being a woman. She’s repeatedly been told that they just can’t have a woman on the Jaguar campaign, and when another client is dissatisfied with a campaign and Peggy suggests they change the gender roles and move it to Paris, things really start to shake up. Don tells her she has to check with Ginsberg, and Peggy responds that she’s really not in charge of things anymore (after all, Ginsberg is still relatively new at SCDP and now Peggy has to take orders from him?) Don says if Peggy really wants to go to Paris, fine go to Paris, and proceeds to fling money at her. Again, we see the relationship between women and money on the show, as if money can take the place of principles, both in the case of Peggy and Joan. Pissed off, Peggy retreats from Don’s office, only to have Ken Cosgrove attempt to comfort her. Though they had once made a pact that if one of them leaves, so would the other, this seems to go straight out the window as Peggy tells Ken she doesn’t care about his “stupid pact”. I found it interesting that as one of the most honest, forthright characters, Peggy completely disregards their promise. Though I understand her motivations, it was a surprising change in character. Finally, Peggy meets with Freddy Rumsen at a diner, who attempts to help her find a new job. Do you think Peggy will be fully appreciated at her new firm? What did you think of her change of heart?

                Joe:

                Peggy and Megan face the same challenges as Joan, how do they as women relate to their worth. While, Peggy and Megan face forward and confront it on their own terms, Joan is consigned to facing it on Herb and the firm’s terms. However, Don doesn’t like this fact, after Pete tells him that the conversation doesn’t stop after he leaves the room he storms off to Joan’s apartment. He wants to win on his and Ginsberg’s ideas, not in that way. Once he gets there he is invited in by Joan’s mother and once Joan steps out of the bedroom. He tells Joan that selling herself in that way isn’t worth it and that he doesn’t want business with “people like that.” She tells him that he is one of the good ones and seems to have changed her mind once he leaves.

                The next morning Don and the rest of the SCDP team burst into Jaguar headquarters like a herd of penguins. Brushing past another group of admen on their way out from their pitch. Don bursts into his his artful pitch about the elusive nature of the things you want in life, asking whether or not you would want them so bad if they weren’t so ephemeral and temperamental. Cross cut with his pitch is Joan arriving at Herb’s hotel room and proceeding to do the awful deed. Joan looks beautiful in her black dress, but it is impossible to appreciate knowing what is about to come. Once she arrives at the apartment there is no doubt that she is going to go through with it, even though she slaps his hand away once. Afterwards she slides out of the bed back to her apartment and in a heartwrenching scene we see that Don had gotten to her apartment too late and that by the time he had arrived to discourage her it was all behind her.
               

                After the pitch, Don arrives back to the office and is called into Roger’s office to hear the result of the pitch. Pete rounds up the rest of the partners and we see Don’s face fall as Joan enters the office as a partner. It represents another Pyrrhic victory for Don Draper, even though the pitch was amazing he will never know if he landed the business through creativity or business misdeeds. It asks the viewers the question, is Don the last good man at SCDP? It leads me to think, maybe the man falling in the opening credits isn’t Don Draper. Maybe the figure is the archetypical adman morally tumbling through time while Dick Whitman, progeny of sexual misdeeds, watches on in horror from his corner office. But I do think we can find some solace in Peggy and Megan, don’t you think?

     Mandy:

     Yes, because I think we see Peggy and Megan moving forward in terms of their gender roles, this in contrast to Joan. While Joan’s original repugnance at Pete’s suggestion that she sleep with Herb led me to believe that perhaps, she too, would move beyond her role as a woman, she unfortunately lapsed into objectification and “being sold”. Peggy on the other hand, is taking control of her situation. She’s unhappy at SCDP and the way she’s been treated lately, so she does something about it rather then let the men in her life be in control. Not to say that Joan is not a strong woman at times, after all she showed her strength when she kicked out Greg, but Joan has said that she was “raised to be admired”, and perhaps then, objectified for her beauty. Like Peggy, Megan too has been increasingly taking charge of her own life, from quitting the firm, to setting up auditions. As I mentioned before, Megan seems much more interested in following her own dreams to become an actress then to play the role of wife. Neither Peggy nor Megan are content to sit idly by as men determine their lives, but I don’t think we should judge Joan for her choice either. I think we can expect to see a lot out of Joan as a new partner at SCDP, and I think we’ll see that perhaps sleeping with Herb was her way of advancing herself, though maybe not in the best way possible. After all, Joan may have actually given herself up to Herb, but she’s certainly not the only one on SCDP in the business of selling oneself.

                 I know I usually use this space for quippy nonsense, but I can't do that with this episode. How does your opinion of Joan change with these events? Will Peggy and Megan be successful in their new endeavors? How much did the partners of SCDP disgust you with their actions? Let us know in the comments.