Mad Men Season 2, Episode 2: Burning airlines give you so much more

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Mad Men Season 2, Episode 2: Burning airlines give you so much more

POSTED: Wednesday, August 6, 2008, 8:07 PM

Filed Under: TV Mad Men

Don't get me wrong! Some of my best friends are ... in advertising.

amctv.com

First, the answer to what seemed to be everyone’s big question at the beginning of Season 2: What happened to office slave-turned-successful copywriter Peggy Olson’s (Elisabeth Moss) baby? You know, the result of her one-night stand with everyone’s least favorite account executive, Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser)? The baby she wasn’t aware of until she went into labor? The baby we saw being taken out of her hands in the hospital during the Season 1 finale? That baby!

We find out about two-thirds of the way through "Flight 1" that, in true 1950s fashion (for it was still the 1950s until probably around 1967 or so in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn), Peggy’s kid is living with her widowed mom back home. We see Peggy and the kid — a boy, coming up on two years old — twice: once in the bedroom he shares with his cousins when Peggy stops by for a perfunctory hello, and again when she’s guilt-tripped into attending mass with her family. Peggy is a full-on lapsed Catholic at this point, so she can’t/won’t take communion. Instead, she sits in the pew holding her chubby, estranged kid while mom and sister line up for the body and blood of Christ. The mass scene is this episode’s dramaturgical triumph — it’s pre-Vatican II to the letter, with the priest intoning in Latin with his back to the congregation, and the altar servers holding those weird, flat spittoon things under people’s chins while the priest puts the wafer on the tongue.

So what’s the kid’s name? Pete Jr.? Doubtful, since we have no reason to think he has any idea the kid exists or that he intends to make him heir to the Campbell throne ...

And that’s just as well! Because the other big action in "Flight 1" is the death of Pete’s father, who it turns out — club memberships and Mayflower pedigree aside — died totally insolvent! In addition to this meaning no hypothetical inheritance for Pete’s love child, it also means there’s not much to go around for Pete’s dad’s funeral, or his mom’s subsequent widowhood. What to do?

Showcase some remarkable ensemble acting, that's what! From the moment Pete finds out about his dad’s death in the famous American Airlines Flight 1 crash over Jamaica Bay, Queens, through the strange pre-funeral family scenes that follow, Kartheiser, Alison Brie (she plays his wife Trudy) and whoever plays Mrs. Campbell do some of the weirdest, Beckett-type overlapping-monologues-masquerading-as-dialogue that I’ve seen on TV. It’s an abrupt shift from everything else in the series, but the mission — to take Campbell, up to this point a spoiled, pathetic, unsympathetic mess, and watch him develop into something vaguely human — is accomplished.

Campbell has an opportunity to test out his newfound humanity when Head of Accounts "Duck" Phillips (Mark Moses) approaches Campbell with a Faustian bargain: use his personal connection to the tragedy of AA Flight 1 to help Duck win the American Airlines account. Campbell, still in shock, refuses. Sensing that principle is at stake (even if he’s still figuring out exactly what principle is), Campbell instinctively turns to Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Draper, already having a bad day because he’s been ordered to cut loose an existing airline client to make room for AA, tells Campbell to get lost without hearing him out. We sense immediately that this miscalculation will eventually take on Oedipus Rex-size proportions for Draper. It’s a painful moment to watch.

Our worst suspicions are confirmed when Campbell turns up unexpectedly at the meeting with the American Airlines guy. Campbell, his moral ambitions thwarted by Draper, turns the bullshit up to 11, informing the AA executive that his father died aboard Flight 1, and for that reason, he'll pour his heart and soul into rehabilitating their corporate image. Campbell has seen the big picture. It is senseless and hellish as a Bosch painting — and he’s totally on board.

Nothing else earth-shattering happens in Episode 2. Ascot-wearing Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) throws a party where he introduces his co-workers to his African-American girlfriend. Joan (Christina Hendricks) opens her mouth, and what tumbles out could double as the template for American, white, liberal, post-Civil Rights movement racism. She actually uses the phrase "open-minded" at one point!

It’s unforgivable, but Joan fares better at the office a few days later, when she calls Kinsey out for what he is — a slumming, pompous fraud. Retort-less, he retaliates by borrowing Joan’s driver’s license from her purse, photocopying it and placing it on the wall in the break room. Joan’s most closely guarded secret —that she is over 30 — is revealed, much to the amusement of her charges in the secretarial pool.

Draper and family don’t do much this episode. They play some bridge (or is it canasta?), have a nice, sublimated argument about Don’s infidelity, and instruct their daughter in the fine art of mixing an Old Fashioned. It’s a triumph for the child labor movement: In just a few generations, they’ve gone from chimney sweeping to bartending.

Janglyjan

Posted 2008-08-06 17:48:07

Thanks for the recap. I spent most of the episode distracted, planning to dye my hair the same color as Joan's. Wonder if the kid can make a Negroni?

Roxanne

Posted 2008-08-06 21:37:16

Love ...the caption. 



Even before his biological father's death, Pete's been in search of a father AND fatherly approval. Duck provides what Draper couldn't in that single moment. In another instance, Draper might have been up to the task, which'd change the whole dynamic of the show. 



I thought it was an interesting episode. Life is made up of such moments.

Joel

Posted 2008-08-07 17:11:05

Jan-

You mean that's not her real hair color?!

Joe Bua

Posted 2008-08-12 19:57:53

Yeah, that whole Pete's family scene was so foreign to me. All these people repressing, I felt myself about to explode.



Just can't imagine. 



I loved that he went to Don in the office. Almost as if he couldn't help himself. 



Peggy disappoints me as a person but is so intriguing as a character. In church, she holds the kid like a radioactive bag o'donuts.



I'm a week behind, I know.

Posted by Joel Tannenbaum @ 8:07 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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