Mad Men “Red in the Face”

One of the joys of Mad Men is the subtle writing.  Every week has common theme that is explored within the episode, but the theme is not overtly mentioned or beaten over your head.  They just have a situation that asks the question and lets the audience figure it out.  To me “Red in the Face” was about the difference between men and women and the tensions that are presented by those differences. 

So far in this series I’ve noticed how the main plot of the episode subtly involves the theme and the secondary plot brings the theme to the forefront.  In this episode, Sterling, having just been blown off by Joan, invites Don out for drinks.  Don hesitates to accept since Betty is fixing dinner for him, but eventually concedes.  Already we have a rift between what the female characters and the male characters.  While at drinks Sterling invites himself to dinner and follows Don back home.  After they drink plenty of alcohol and eat dinner, while Don is out in the garage for another bottle of booze, Sterling makes a pass at Betty.  Here the rift grows.  Betty, from her perspective, is innocent.  She was only being friendly during dinner, especially considering she hadn’t wanted Sterling there in the first place, and politely turned Sterling down when he makes his drunken move on her.  But from the men’s perspective she had been making eyes at Sterling and is at least partially responsible for what happened.  From this point the characters split and continue the story separately.

Don and Sterling go out for lunch before meeting with the Nixon campaign.  At lunch they eat plenty of oysters and drink plenty of alcohol finishing off with a slice of cheesecake.  On their way back to the office they are faced with a crisis, the elevators are down and they have to climb 23 floors to their offices.  After a grueling climb that almost bests Sterling they arrive at their floor to meet the men from the Nixon campaign, but when Sterling arrives he’s obviously not feeling well.  He’s pale and sweaty, holding his stomach.  As he’s being introduced to the men he hurls all over the floor.  They get the situation under control and as Don’s walking away he smirks.  He planned it all as revenge for making a pass at his wife.  I love how they set it up too, because the scene where Don bribes the elevator operator he barely says a word.  I didn’t even think about it until after the credits were wondering then it hit me.  That was a great moment.

Betty handles the conflict in her own life a little differently.  While she’s shopping for groceries Betty runs into Helen, who is the mother of Glen that all the housewives dislike.  Helen confronts Betty about the lock of hair that Betty gave to Helen’s son while babysitting him in a previous episode leading Betty to smack her in the face.  You might notice this scene differed wildly from Sterling’s apology to Don about dinner where both men tried at all odds to avoid actually saying what happened.  After this incident Betty resides to drinking wine in the afternoon and dwelling on what happened until another housewife shows up to comfort her.  The female situation is resolved by Betty’s friend taking her side and promising that the other housewives will shun Helen for what she did.  Now, I’m not saying that all women act like this, but the writers were obviously depicting differing ways the two sexes deal with similar situations.

The secondary plot centers on Pete as he skips lunch with the guys to return a wedding gift, a chip-n-dip (you put the chips on the sides and the dip in the middle).  He is ridiculed for doing a woman’s job at work, and then is quietly ridiculed at the department store as he attempts to return it.  After jumping through multiple hoops to return the item, and running into a friend who is there for manly reasons, is told that he can only receive store credit.  He attempts to hit on the girl across the counter to get cash to no avail.  It is important to note, I think, that she seems smitten with Pete’s manly friend, but only annoyed at the attempts of the “effeminate” Pete.  Back at the office Pete reveals that with his store credit he chose to buy a rifle, which is much more masculine than a chip-n-dip (you put the chips on the sides and the dip in the middle), which causes him much grief from his wife who obviously disproves of his judgment.  Pete’s story is summed up when he opens up to Peggy about a fantasy he has which is as manly as Chuck Norris.  He has a fantasy of hunting and killing a large buck, dragging it back to a cabin where he would drain it, dress it, and cut a loin from it.  He would take the loin inside and there would be a woman who would cook it and then, just for kickers, watch him eat it.  If that fantasy doesn’t sum up how women were viewed in the past, I don’t know what does.  This story brings the difference, in this world and in some respects our own, between men and women into focus and makes us think about them. 

Mad Men is really coming through on thought provoking stories that leave me pondering them for hours after the credits have rolled.  I think that’s my favorite aspect of the show.

As always, leave a comment.  Tell me what you think?  What I missed?  A different way to consider the episode?  Do you agree?  Disagree?  Tell me!