"Three Sundays"

Season 2, Episode 4, "Three Sundays"

Three consecutive Sundays in "Madmen", and the underlying theme seems to be, "Getting stabbed in the back." Sterling-Cooper gets shafted by American Airlines when their contact gets fired, making all their hard work for nothing. Peggy's older sister- much older- resents her growing friendship with the young Jesuit priest, and stabs Peggy in the back during her Confession. Then you've got Don dragging his heels in disciplining his son. Naturally, Betty thinks he's making her out to be the bad guy to the kids. And finally, Roger starts the episode pushing for a traditional marriage for his daughter, then ending the show sweet-talking a call girl out to dinner. (Shafting both his wife and her next client!)

-If there's a broader theme for this episode, I'd guess it's about how being responsible and doing the right thing isn't going to be rewarded. As the young priest points out to Peggy's sister, Anita, in the confession box. Don's attempt to be a better husband and father seems like an uphill battle- Betty and him get into a shoving match. Then you have Sterling-Cooper's meticulous proposal for American Airlines thrown out because their contact got fired. Don's daughter seems to be getting a free ride, while his son's getting the wrath of Betty, which mirrors the sibling rivalry between Peggy and Anita.

-You wonder if Duck was taking a perverse glee in giving the bad news to Sterling-Cooper about Shel's firing. (I didn't notice the 'last supper' reference of the presentation team's staging 'til someone on the A.V. club's board pointed it out.) I'm sure putting Shel's name on the presentation folder didn't help matters much...

-The secretarial pool REALLY doesn't like Peggy, not only since she makes more money, but she gets to hit the buffet table before them.

-Don's daughter likes that Scotch. Oh, yes.

-I hope we see more of Colin Hanks' Jesuit priest this season. I hope he picked up on Peggy's sister's spiteful gesture in Confession for what it was. I'd like to think his giving her the Easter egg 'for the little one' in the final scene was a gesture of compassion, and not a 'You're so busted, Peggy!' Maybe it's both?...

-Whadda ya wanna bet that the reason Ken Cosgrove gets 300 a week as opposed to Pete's 75 is his unofficial job as the office pimp? He knows an awful lot about call girls...

-It's funny, but even though Betty's in the right about their son, it's Don we empathise with. I have to assume his story about his dad beating him was true, even though one's first assumption is it's yet another lie.

-You can't help but like Roger, even though he cheats on his wife for the same reason he enjoys working at Sterling-Cooper. "It's the thrill of the chase", he tells Don, trying to console Don over the loss of American Airlines. Though if you can afford to buy out a call girl, there's not much thrill there, really.

-Check out Pete's tennis outfit on that one Sunday! Come on, Pete! Sal's supposed to be the gay one!

-Don's silence when Betty asks him, "Would you be the man you are today if your dad didn't spank you?"

-I can't say I blame Anita for her 'confession'. She's married to a lout, her figure's gone, and she got stuck raising Peggy's kid. No doubt her family views her as the 'baby factory'.

-Betty was reading that F. Scott Fitzgerald book the horny riding patron referenced in the last episode.

-So far, Duck's the only character who's life we haven't had a look at. It's kind of odd, given the trademark of this series is to show off the many facets of the character's personalities. They seem to be setting him up as a foil for Don in the business, but I'm hoping there's much more to Duck then we're seeing. While Don views advertising as an art form, where the pitch to the client is the bait on the hook, Duck's point of view is that if one is going fishing, why not use a grenade in the pond to get the fish? (It's a clumsy metaphor, but I just woke up...)

While I'm here, I've heard some critisism that at the end of the day, 'MadMen' is just a soap opera with a higher budget. This is an understandable assessment, but wrong, and here's why.

On the surface, it's a story about a bunch of disparate characters in a specific time and place, and how they interact with each other, and how outside events affect them. Which, in broad terms, is how a soap opera works. However, in a soap opera, its story lines could be charitably described as melodramatic, 'And Then' plotting. For instance:

For one character's story arc in a season on a soap opera, the season starts with Sweet Polly Baker's cliffhanger pregnancy from last episode turning out to be a miscarriage. AND THEN, it turns out that the kindly, handsome young minister Dr. Anderson was really the father, not her rising young hotshot executive husband Dan. AND THEN her sleazy half-brother Nathan shows up 'for a few days' to crash on her couch and work on his 'business idea' which he tells everyone is to start a surf shop in their city of Missoula, Montana but he's really hiding from the Mob and his business involves getting runaway teenage girls to pose for nude photos for the Internet, AND THEN it turns out that Polly's baby wasn't born dead but a deranged nurse stole the kid to raise as her own, AND THEN... but you get the idea.

The point is, Polly's always going to have a likable, or sympathetic personality, and her latest crisis is going to be resolved before the season ends. Unless the actress playing Polly wants more money, or wants to expand her career by doing something less degrading, like appear in a national ad for hemmoroid commercials, in which case, the soap opera producers will kill her off in a melodramatic way.

In MadMen, what defines the show is the complexities of the characters. Betty Draper comes across as melancholy and sheltered, and now her character seems to be taking on darker aspects, with her increasing impatience to her husband and kids, with an increasing awareness of the power of her sexuality. Pete Campbell initially comes across as a glad-handing, unctous little weasel, until you get a glimpse of his home life and how emasculated he is by his family. And Don Draper is one of the most complex characters in T.V. fiction. He's a man with a strong sense of integrity, who takes pride in his work and his family. Until you find that his entire life is a lie. He lied to get to where he is in the world, his job involves lying, ultimately. And he's desperatly unhappy. What compounds this is that this is the life he chose for himself, and he can't see any way out of it. (What's coming up in this season is Don's attempt to make the best of the hand that he's been dealt, and finding that not only doing the 'right thing' offers no rewards, but winds up making a complicated life even more complicated.

That's why the few melodramatic touches in the show seem so out of place. Peggy's pregnancy and Don's half-brother's suicide, for example. I understand creator Matthew Weiner was concerned that the show might not get a second season, hence why those odd touches went in. Since it looks good to continue for at least a couple more seasons, I'm hoping the quality of the series won't be brought down by bits like those.