Mad Men Series 3, Episode 3 - My Old Kentucky Home: A Review

Before I get on with writing about the rest of the episode, I have to get the image of Roger done up in blackface out of my head. Although Mad Men’s well known for its casual racism (and a lot of other –isms as well), that was definitely a surprise, and considering the stigma now attached to blackface, particularly in the US, it was fairly brave of the makers to show one of their characters doing it, and a lot more of them laughing at it.

It turns out that Roger and Jane Sterling definitely know how to throw a party, even if the staff of Sterling-Cooper don’t know how to let their hair down. I expect Pete, as eager-to-please as ever, choreographed and rehearsed his dance with Trudy obsessively beforehand, whereas Harry Crane was his usual boring self and just merged into the background, letting his wife do much of the talking for him while Don just wandered off to drink alone. Well, not quite alone as he was joined by John Waters, or ‘Connie’ as he prefers to be known, which lead to more reminiscing about Don’s past. Although the Dick Whitman story has mostly been covered now, it would be interesting to see some more of his teenage years (hopefully using a different actor, as previous attempts to de-age Jon Hamm by giving him a silly haircut were a bit distracting).

 And that wasn’t the only partying going on this week what with Joan attempting to impress her useless fiancé’s co-workers, and Kinsey, Smitty and Peggy attempting to spice up a weekend in the office by getting high. It really is heartbreaking seeing Joan moving from her role in the office as iron-fisted dictator of the secretarial pool to her home life as meek and underappreciated house-wife, and her meeting with former secretary Jane in the office highlighted this – in a just world Joan would be the one wearing ridiculous hats and putting on the airs of wealth and sophistication (although she wouldn’t need to fake it as she’s already fabulous). And despite Joan’s attempts to avoid conflict with her fiancé by suggesting a buffet, she really should have stuck to her guns and gone with the original seating plan idea, after all who serves a roast at a buffet? At least we were given the delightful, and surprisingly sexy, sight of Joan playing the accordion to amuse her guests, I expect accordion sales will now go through the roof (or at least they would if the show got the audience numbers it deserves).

The marijuana story-line was revealing in that it showed new depths to Peggy. I think it’s clear that she views Don more as a mentor and father-figure as, once she found her drug-induced inspiration, she started emulating his mystical, philosophical version of advertising speak. The battle with her secretary Olive, and peaceful conclusion at the end of the episode, was pretty much the situation between Peggy and her mother played out on a smaller scale, so in later episodes it could be the case that Peggy finally gets over the expectations of her gender and joins in more with the boys. It also revealed just how pathetic Kinsey and Crane are, what with Crane keeping a fraternity paddle in his office, Kinsey’s drug-dealer friend introducing himself to Peggy with the words ‘Princeton 55’ as if that was meant to impress her, and Kinsey’s near tantrum when told he wasn’t good enough to sing in the ‘Tigertones’, which judging by the barbershop style singing we were then subjected to isn’t something that anybody in their right mind should be upset about.

 Events preceded as usual in the Draper household, mainly in that grandpa Gene continued to be angry and forgetful, and once again managed to nail Don’s weaknesses during a ranting outburst – this time it was about the fact that Don believes money can solve all problems, which we saw demonstrated in his bribing of Betty’s brother last week, although Don did manage to offer the witty comeback of ‘Not all problems, just this one’. Once again Betty managed to dismiss Sally’s pleas for attention, even when Sally resorted to complimenting Betty on her looks – it does seem that telling her kids to ‘Go watch TV’ is the main extent of Betty’s parenting-skills. So it was quite touching for Sally to get some attention from her grandpa, even if she did nearly ruin it by sneaking $5 from his money-clip.

And so we come back to Roger and Jane’s party, wherein Jane redeemed herself a little by getting incredibly drunk and forgetting to keep her rich lady act up, Roger suspected Don of trying to have his way with her (which is hardly surprising going on Don’s previous form) and lead to Don rather cruelly telling Roger that he and Jane made a ridiculous couple, which I’m sure will lead to tensions in the office in later episodes, and Don ended the episode by rather passionately embracing Betty, which like many things at the Sterling party might have just been for show considering the fact that they were barely speaking to each other before that.

Now over to you, anybody out there watching the show, and if so what did you think of it? Were you as thrilled by Peggy’s new-found independence, and Joan’s previously unseen musical talents as I was, or do you think I’m being a bit hard on Kinsey and poor, old dependable Harry? Or it might even be the case that I’ve missed something that you thought deserved a mention. The comments space is there for you to have your say.