What do you do with your days when you’re unemployed? Or, on leave? You can’t stay in the house all day, so you go to the movies.
Spoilers after the jump.
You get home and you call your girl to order some more ribbon for your typewriter and maybe get some onion skin while you’re at it (can someone please explain that to me?). You get mad because she’s being unhelpful and won’t just come over and won’t even get your wife’s agent on the line. So you hang up and make the call yourself. You find out your wife is acting like a crazy person, so you decide to get on the next plane out there to surprise her.
Well, she thinks it’s a surprise, but when you finally come clean that you’ve been put on leave and haven’t even been drinking that much, she’s pissed and kicks you out. Surprise, indeed, I guess. So fuck it, you make a call to an agency that’s been courting you and you have dinner Goddammit. Enough of this sitting around the house. You get an offer from the competing agency and then you go to Roger Sterling’s (not to be confused with Donald Sterling) apartment and tell him you’re ready to get back to work. You quarrel a bit before he says, “Fine! Come in on Monday. I miss you.”
So you come in on Monday and realize that Roger hasn’t told anyone that you’d be coming in and it’s the most awkward 10 hours of your life. Everyone who isn’t a partner or Peggy is excited to see you. They show you baby pictures, ask for advice on money and try and get your opinion on Chevalier Blanc campaign. When Roger shows up from his “early lunch” at 12:30 he has the meeting that you thought he would have had before you showed up like it was the first day of school.
While the partners may have been on the same page about getting you out of the office, no one was clear about for how long. Some thought forever, others thought for “some time.” In the end though, it’s really about financials. They’re already paying you and Lou, and you’re a partner, so there’s the matter of having to buy you out if they fire you. Oh and if they fire you, there goes your non-compete clause. You’re still a creative genius and everyone knows that so you can come back, but under an impossible set of rules and conditions, violation of which will result in termination and re-absorption of your partnership shares.
- You’ll be in Lane’s old office. (Creepy)
- No drinking on the job unless entertaining clients. (Fine)
- You won’t be left alone with clients. (ok)
- You’ll stick to the partner-approved script during client pitches. (Understandable)
- And you’ll report to Lou. (Table flip, fuck you, drop mic and get the hell out of dodge.)
But you say fine and agree to the terms. You can’t stand it in that house anymore. It’s time to get back to work.
Meanwhile:
- Betty has lunch with Francine and finds out she’s working because her kids are older now and they need her at home a little bit less. Francine calls Betty old-fashioned and it seems that she is. Betty decides that she’ll chaperone Bobby’s field trip to prove that her kids need her and she’s not a terrible mother. Though she makes Bobby feel like shit for trading her sandwich for some gumballs he doesn’t even want. I’ll defend Betty here. Bobby’s a fucking idiot and my mother probably would have reacted the same way.
- Peggy’s pissed that Ginsberg was nominated for a Clio for Playtex and she wasn’t for St. Joseph’s. She wasn’t nominated because Jim pulled her work from consideration. Oh, and then Don shows up and she pretty much tells him to fuck off.
- Ms. Pammy wears a blouse that she only half buttons up without a bra. Another mother on Bobby’s field trip is scared one of the children will grab on the wrong udders.
- Harry is still fucking insufferable. He’s so proud of his media department, but he lied through his teeth to the client about their computer. Honestly, why hasn’t he been fired yet? Everyone knows he hates his job, no one seems to like him. While he probably has a contract, he’s not a partner, so there aren’t the same sort of financial ramifications there are with trying to oust Don. I hope that Wiener is setting us up for a big showdown between Harry and the partners where Harry meets his demise.
- Why hasn’t Dawn or someone told Don that she has been promoted? She can’t really continue pretending to be his secretary AND do the Head of Personnel job. Hopefully he gets a new secretary next week and we don’t have to see Dawn continue with juggling act.
- “Lou’s work is adequate,” Jim says. That pretty much sums it up. If Bert doesn’t like how the agency is perceived outside of the office, then they need to create some stellar work that will get everyone’s mind off what happened with Hershey. It’s like Don has said, if you don’t like what they’re saying, change the conversation.
Photo via Michael Yarish/AMC.
