In the “Mad Men” universe, holidays are rarely occasions for joyous celebrations, and so it was Sunday night with the episode titled “Christmas Waltz,” which no one would confuse with the “Downton Abbey” holiday special. No, the writers — Matthew Weiner, the show runner, and Victor Levin — made a point of mentioning that it was Pearl Harbor Day, and the agency’s outlook for the new year, 1967, is not a happy one. Clients are late on their bills, and a strike will lead Mohawk Airlines to suspend its advertising.
Though Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) brings good tidings from Jaguar — it needs a a new agency, and Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is in the running for its first car account — his colleagues are leery (one calls the automobiles lemons). “No one has given me the reaction I desire from this blessed event,” Pete complains.
He may have made a big play on the agency’s behalf, but the episode favored secondary characters who haven’t been heard from much this season, starting with Lane Pryce (Jared Harris). His tax problems back home in England have been resolved, so long as he sends a check for £2,900 in two days ($8,000, he moans; in 2012 that would be about $4,600). It’s money he doesn’t have, and a desperate Lane comes up with a solution that involves the agency’s finances and convincing a banker to extend Sterling Cooper’s line of credit immediately and his partners to give Christmas bonuses. It turns out it’s easier to get $50,000 from a bank in one day than it is to get ad men to hand out holiday cash, and Lane winds up forging Don’s signature on a check. Presumably Lane will be found out, but if past transgressions on “Mad Men” are anything to go by, I’m guessing his punishment will not involve the authorities. Readers?
Then there’s Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis), the copywriter who wasn’t invited to join the new agency when it was formed a few seasons ago. Paul had been pestering Harry Crane (Rich Sommer), the head of the agency’s television department, for a meeting, and to keep Paul from dropping by the office (there’s a reference to Paul, like Roger, having taken LSD), a reluctant Harry agrees to see him on Paul’s turf. That would be a Hare Krishna gathering, and the setting, along with the sight of a berobed Paul, his head shaved save for a small knot of hair at the back — shock Harry. (“I’m sorry, this is giving me the willies,” he says.) Then again, the Hare Krishnas were unfamiliar to most Americans at that point: the group was founded in New York in July 1966.
Spurred on by Paul’s lover, Lakshmi (Anna Wood), Harry gets caught up in the Krishna chant, but he knows Paul wants something and afterward finds out what it is: help getting Paul’s “Star Trek” script to NBC. The script sounds pretty awful (it’s titled “The Negron Problem”; that’s not a typo), but Paul wins over Harry with his hope — to earn enough money so that he and Lakshmi can run off together — and his confession that as much as he tried, he hasn’t attained inner peace and is as competitive among the Hare Krishnas as he was at the agency and probably just as disliked.
Harry wants to help (he tells Peggy, who knows Paul’s checkered work history, “Do you know how lucky we are?”), but Lakshmi intervenes, seducing him, then pushing him to tell Paul the truth about the screenplay so that Paul will remain a believer. (Besides, he’s the best recruiter they have. “I mean, he really can close,” she says.) Harry figures out a third way, offering Paul $500 and a ticket to Los Angeles but not an honest critique. Paul took the money but do you think he’s actually headed to Hollywood?
Speaking of show business, all is not well with Don and Megan. She brings him to a play featuring an actor friend, but the production’s fairly obvious commentary about advertising leads to the first of two caustic arguments. (In that second set-to, what did you make of Don’s confusion over her anger? Was it a reference to an earlier episode when a fight led to sex in the living room?)
Still, outsiders only know them as a perfect couple, and that includes Joan, who was reeling from being served with divorce papers. Don (Jon Hamm) and Joan (Christina Hendricks) are rarely alone together, and their scenes in a bar, where he tried to cheer her up, were some of the best of the season. Why didn’t he ever make a pass at her? He was scared. Besides she received so many bouquets of flowers from admirers that he thought she was dating Aly Khan. You’ll find someone better, he told her.
At a bleak moment, that suggestion, like Harry’s offer earlier, counts as a small gift of hope in the world of “Mad Men.”
As a substitute for Mike Hale (who’ll be back next week), I’m sure I’ve missed quite a bit. Let us know in the comments along with your thoughts on the episode.
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