Ah, Ann-Margret. Her of the unique ability to be 25 and act 14.

August Bravo: Before we talk about last night’s very interesting episode – “Love Among The Ruins” -I want you to go to this site. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen it before, the “Which MAD MAN are you?” quiz. I too it and my result was Pete Campbell. I really hoped for Cosgrove. Oh well. And from last week, what you said about Draper being more forward thinking than Kinsey, I thought you meant Kinsey, the famous 50s doctor, not the character on the show. Very appropiate for you to say that.

Marco Sparks: Thank you. I do my best. Oh, you mean Alfred Kinsey? Ha ha. Yes.

August: Okay, so last night’s episode… was a very interesting one. There were o many subtle scenes throughout. I love Don’s growing anger over Pryce and the chaps from London. And I’m very intrigued to see how that anger might continue to escalate throughout the rest of the season.

Marco: Indeed. Here’s Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner talking about the chaps and dandys from London:

“The British have come here because we’re great. They’re redefining how things are done. But at the same time,they feel everyone needs a parent. That’s their attitude.”

And yes, last night’s episode with the truly great title, “Love Among The Ruins,” based on the poem by Browning, was very interesting. And there really are so many ruins there, aren’t there? Sterling Cooper itself, New York, Betty Draper’s dad, Roger Sterling’s hopes for a smoothing sailing into his post-divorce life, etc. Oh, and speaking of which MAD MAN I happen to be, I took the quiz and this is what came out…

…surprising no one, perhaps. The drama over his daughter’s impending nuptials which may or may not have Roger’s young bride Jane in attendance is fasciating to me. I think since the end of last season, I’ve actually started to really like Roger. But I do sense that the new set date for his daughter Margaret’s wedding – November 23, 1963 - might be a sad, mournful day. It will probbly rain too.

August: I’m going to go ahead and say this right now, but my favorite scene in the episode was Probably Don showing his dominence in the family by telling Betty’s brother how everything was going to be and work with the arrangements over her ailing slightly alzheimers-ish father. I always feel Don is trying to maintain his manhood in the house. Not that Betty questions it or that anyone else does, really, but he seems to constantly need to exhibit his alpha dog status in the homestead.

Marco: Perhaps because he wants to have that perfect suburban home life, and in doing so, he feels partly defined by wearing the pants at home? And let’s face it, it’s not hard to be “the man” compared to his brother-in-law. I don’t want to call anyone a slippery pussy or anything, but seriously, stuff a tampon in that guy so that he’ll shut up. Also: Bunk beds!

You know who I didn’t love before, but that I do now? Peggy Olsen, no joke.

August: Peggy’s storyline throughout this episode was unusual, but certainly a nice change. What makes her think the things she does? I wnder how her infatuation with men again will change the way she feel about work. What I really liked about her in this episode was her reenacting the “Bye Bye Birdie” scene in the mirror. Does she want to be looked at the way the men look at the other girls? I don’t think so, but maybe she wants to know if she still has it?

Marco: I think if you take the whole Marilyn/Jackie O. comparision from last year and apply it to the two main ladies in the office, of course Peggy has to compare herself to Joan. I mean, first of all, look at Joan. She has a certain kind of commanding power and authority within the office (look how she handled Moneypenny last week) and she was the first person that Peggy interacted with when she was hired. And Joan and Don really are Peggy’s main role models I think.

from here.

I like Peggy more because she takes the good advice people give her (mostly from Don and occaionally from Joan)(but also from Colin Hanks last year), and she uses it. And she gets ahead. Yeah, she wants the eye of the men, I think, but only sometimes. That kind of attention feels good sometimes, but she knows she wants and deserves more out of life and a career. She doesn’t want to be a man, I don’t think, she wants to be a woman in what has always been a man’s world, and I think her arc over the course of the show will be just as interesting as Don’s. She’s too smart, especially shown last night during the whole Patio/Diet Pepsi meeting, about which fantasy to market towards: men’s or women’s.

“You’re not fat anymore.” How condescending, Crane.

In fact, I think she’s moving closer and closer to being the human version of Don Draper, as opposed to poor mn’ blue blood Pete Campbell, who is just as lost in the world of the human beings as Dick Whitman, but isn’t as good at hiding it and/or being fucking awesome in it.

Also, as much as I do now like Roger (and you can just smell an upcoming Roger/Don confrontation, can’t you?) and his runaway out of control charm, I think he needs to be applauded and, of course, slappd across the face for his “You’re the only one here who doesn’t have that stupid look on her face” line.

August: I love that line, I think it goes, “You’ve got to leave the tools in the toolboxes.” I wonder if he means the men at the office?

Marco: Mayyyybeee. I loved the stuff with her at the bar, trolling for the finest male college boys Brooklyn could offer her, and try out a few of Joan’s zingers. It’s okay to fuck some college boys, and you know what? It’s just as okay to skip out on them in the middle of the night, Peggy. If you stay, I think you’re going to find out just how boring Burger Boy really was. I was waiting for her to add to her parting, “I work on Madison Avenue, bitch!”

Joan still has my sympathies because of her asshole husband to be (or are they already married and I missed that?). The looming threat of June 1 and her upcoming prison of maternity makes me yearn for her to make a fiery breakout.

“It’s sexy and it’s what they want.”

August: With Betty’s father living there for what I assume will be the majority of the season, I’m interested to see the unusual things he will do, as he slips further and further away. I liked his prohibition era worry to the sirens outide. And I’m curious to see more of his antics in Don’s domestic bliss this year.

Marco: It’s interesting that the father, slipping away, was still able to shake Don up last year with his comment: “He has no people!”

August: That near final scene, with Don’s kids at the summer function, with Don just sitting there, just watching the girls dance around, the bare feet moving through the grass. Don’t can’t help but watch and reach below to touch something, to feel the grass. Just for a second. Maybe just to feel something. His life is in a jumble right now, and he fees lost (as he possibly goes more introspective) and he can’t help but want to feel something, anything.”

Marco: Yes, yes, yes. That scene was incredibly beautiful to me, and also incredibly tragic. Don Draper is a lost man searching for something external that he seems to feel is missing internally. He’s been a lot of places and all of them are where he’s already been, and yet, I feel he’ll travel a lot farther and long to feel a great many more things before he really meets Don Draper/Dick Whitman at the finish line. Also, I smell a wee bit more of infidelity.

August: We still haven’t talked about New York itself yet.

Marco: You mean that ever changing, sordid little beast with the Penn Station/Madison Square Gardens change up? I like Kinsey, the young guy who believes in change, but maybe not always for the right reasons, and always have a good laugh at him, especially here, as the Grand Old Wise Man Of New York City. I see Kinsey’s side to this particular argument, especially about the great works of Roman architecture, but I wouldn’t compare New York to Rome, nor call it the greatest city on Earth. I know New Yorkers truly believe that, but, well… “a city of cry babies?” Ha ha.

But I also love Don’s magic in selling the potential clients on coming back to Sterling Cooper, and of course his frustration with then having to drop them after he not only won them back with the need for such a change to NYC. He doesn’t just give his juice away for free, people! Just the same as the fact that the man attends meetings, he doesn’t set them.

It’s an interesting time at Sterling Cooper, in NYC, in Don Draper’s life, and on Mad Men. Out with the old, and in with the new. See you next week.

Bye Bye Birdie!