Talking ‘Mad Men’: The Woman in Room 503

Every Monday morning, Sloane Crosley and Logan Hill will be offering their post-”Mad Men” analysis here. Read on and share your reactions to Don and Sylvia’s last tryst, Joan and Bob’s new alliance and more, in the comments:

Sloane Crosley: Happy Mother’s Day, Logan! Or, in the tender words of Pete Campell, “My mother can go to hell!”

Logan Hill: With two ice cubes tinkling in her gin and tonic, while Ted flies her there! What did you make of Pete and his mom?

SC: I apologize if this sounds exactly as macabre as I expect it to sound but this is just the wrong week to have a “men trapping women in rooms and throwing away the key” theme. On a lighter note, I didn’t quite get the point of Pete’s mother’s Alzheimer’s until the “they shot that poor Kennedy boy” scene. And on an even lighter note? We’re talking about a show where Alzheimer’s is the lighter note.

LH: Oof. Exactly. Every time I think I understand how bleak Matt Weiner’s comedic sensibility is, I soon realize I’ve underestimated him. But it’s the sort of riskiness I love about his best writing, and even those scenes were so sharp and cutting this week â€" though everything paled in comparison to the the hotel scenes between Don and Sylvia. We got the return of the Don Draper Treatment (TM), in all its splendor.

SC: I love when Sylvia’s all “what’s gotten into you?” and I’m all (actually shouting at the TV, mind you), “James Spader!” I thought that thread, unlike Pete’s, which was a means to an end, was the show at its finest. The promise is that hotel room is a universe unto itself, an emotional sea-monkey kit. And it is. And the shift in power dynamic at the end is so graceful. Don wanted her to exist only in that room? Wish granted. But then look what happens when she gets so far into it she wants out of it.

LH: This is basic cable television, grappling with sexuality in a sincere way that I’ve never seen before. It’s groundbreaking television in that it never felt like it was pushing Don’s desire into more extreme places (after Bobbie Barrett and so many others) just for shock value. I noticed more prudish fans tweeting their disapproval, but when Jon Hamm bleated, “Please,” it revealed so much about his Don: his compulsive need for control, his desperate insecurity. The pivot worked perfectly for me.

SC: But aside from his genuinely desperate “please” at the end, were you mourning the loss of this affair?

LH: No, I’m glad to see Sylvia gone. This is the only episode in which their affair fascinated me. You?

SC: Oh, no, still not fascinated. He could have locked anyone in that room. Truly. But what I do like is that Don is back in terms of range. The most basic barometer fans have for the show is, in some ways, “How much is Don like Roger Sterling?” So when Don is selfish and heartless and articulate about it but then shows just a sliver of heart and kindness, the show gets better. When the ratio is off, it gets worse. Clearly these are two different men but … the ratio was good in this episode. What did you think of all the merger trappings? It was like Noah’s ark up in that office.

LH: Matt Weiner and his writers are so damn good at zany shenanigans that it sometimes feels as if they could write the best office sitcom ever, and in episodes like this, I think the show trounces so many other workplace dramas: The rivalry between Don and Ted is gimmicky, but it stings. As fans, we, like Peggy, know that Don once pulled the same trick on Roger. Whereas Ted just looks undeniably studly in those aviator shades.

SC: Well, it’s no “Ally McBeal,” Logan. No really, you’re right about the gimmicky bit. And it’s the twist that stings. In this case, the twist is the older brother-big brother peer pressure dynamic between the two men. Merger-wise, mostly I was thinking, “I’m glad they fired you, Burt. Pretty sure that’s a Pierre Jeanneret chaise you just openly mocked.” That and the fact that the merger bits included all your zany shenanigans in an episode that also covered cancer and affairs and ovarian cysts. Speaking of cysts: Should we give Bob credit … credit for what, exactly?

LH: Bob is such a cipher: In the comments folks have been speculating that he’s just a younger Don, working his way up, or an investigative journalist working on a tell-all, or a federal investigator looking into Don’s past, or a good robot sent from the future to kill Pete (O.K., that last theory is just mine). I’m utterly at a loss.

SC: Let’s lock him in a room and send him a dress from Saks! Can we please? Or, in the word of Don, “please.”

LH: He’d be into it. He’d do anything for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Or whatever the new firm may be called.

SC: He knows where his bread is buttered, that’s for sure. Speaking of which …

LH: Oh, look at you. You should apply for a copywriting job, where you could come up with ideas and have both Ted and Don ignore you: Double the fun!

SC: I did like seeing the new creative gents and the old stress out over an account.

LH: I liked seeing Harry lose his office. Again. … But did you think this episode was as groovy as I did? I feel the last two episodes have refocused the series on business, which has always been the straw that stirs the pitcher of Don’s bourbon. When the main storyline is business, everything else seems to fall into place.

SC: Actually, I thought it was kind of a recovery episode. Sometimes the pendulum swings with this show. Also, with little Peggy, no Betty, less Megan and little Joan, this was the men’s turn to take the stage. Matt Weiner, in that sense, really did lock the women in a room somewhere for an hour while we watched the boys hash it out. And I enjoyed it, but the plot hasn’t moved forward much.

LH: Yes, Joan’s health-scare is barely there; I was more fascinated by Bob. And Peggy has that nice moment with Don, but it’s just a moment. Obviously, there will be a crisis coming soon and all hell will break loose. What form do you think it will take?

SC: What I want is for Peggy to get over her borderline Florence Nightingale relationship with Ted so that she and Stan might live happily and hair-ily ever after. What will actually happen? It will turn out that Bob has been secretly raising Peggy and Pete’s bastard child. You?

LH: Bob does seem like he’d make a swell dad. I guess I just want the series to continue to contract: Structurally, I think eliminating Sylvia and a few others may really help the show focus on characters we know best, though I do want to see much more of Ted, and see if he molts his nice-guy skin. Also? I want more “Gilligan’s Island” references, because Ted’s analogy was amazing. And I want to replay Roger’s exchange with Burt because his kiss-off was so pleasurably cruel: “You stole my goodbye.”

SC: Remember, Logan, if you wait patiently by the river, the body of your enemy will float by.

LH: Lovely.

Sloane Crosley is the author of “How Did You Get This Number” and “I Was Told There’d Be Cake“; Logan Hill is a journalist who has contributed to The New York Times, New York, GQ, Rolling Stone, Wired and others.