Mad Men - Recap: Much Ado About Ketchup
Recap video and review of Mad Men - Season 6 Episode 4 - To Have and to Hold:
This week's Mad Men could be said to be about any number of a litany of different subjects, from sexuality to race, from middle class malaise to equity in the workplace. But, perhaps more than any other singular theme, "To Have and to Hold" serves as an exploration into territory. For many of these characters, their territory, or at least what they perceive to be their territory, is threatened. What's more troubling is that none of these characters seem to have any idea just how to deal with the threat, leading to their insecurities taking over and causing them to make a scene. This isn't the case for every character, but it's fascinating to see how these dilemmas work out for some others.
Credit: Jordin Althaus/AMC
Take Don (Jon Hamm), for instance. He's facing threats to his territory on both the home and career fronts. When Megan (Jessica Pare) gets offered a love scene on the soap opera she's starring in, Don grouses that he’ll tolerate it, but he won’t encourage it. However, things get touchy when Don and Megan are propositioned by the show's head writer and his wife, who offer to swing with the Drapers, leading to an amusing scene in which both Don and Megan try to backtrack out of the offer by talking about what a big day they have in the morning. Things only get more awkward from here, as Don decides he wants to witness this love scene, despite never having visited Megan on-set before this moment. Megan takes offense at Don's intimations that she's a prostitute for allowing another man to kiss her for money, while Don feels Megan got a little too much enjoyment out of the scene. This outburst brings out the hypocrite in Don, as he embarks on a wild affair with his neighbor's wife, yet can't even stomach the pretense of infidelity when the shoe is on the other foot. Exacerbating this hypocrisy is the fact that Don leaves to find comfort in the arms of his mistress, Sylvia (Linda Cardellini), who insists that she wants nothing more than to see Don at peace, though her continued indulgence of Don's adulterous actions do nothing to help him grow as a person. But I suppose the heart wants what it wants.
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Yet Don's inability to deal with any perceived threat to his territory bears out in his pitch to Heinz Ketchup. Don, Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) and Stan (Jay R. Ferguson) meet up with the Heinz associates for a secretive hotel meeting, in which Don makes his pitch. It's a terrific sequence, with mockups showing nude food lacking that vital ingredient to make them complete: Heinz Ketchup. The simple, almost elegant "Pass the Heinz" at the top of these food images makes for a presentation that's restrained, yet worthy of attention. However, the Heinz associates aren't impressed, leaving it to Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) and her creative team to pick up the slack. Don, who didn't know that Heinz was entertaining other ad agencies, listens in on Peggy's pitch, and it appears that Don is impressed by how his protege has come along. Peggy's pitch is more direct, slapping down the notion of "catsup" as a superior product, and instead offering a sign in big, bold letters with a bottle of Heinz at the top. The ad simply proclaims, "Heinz: The only ketchup." The associates seem far more impressed with this ad than with Don's; however, neither agency wins the account and, to make matters worse, Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) declares that Heinz Beans is furious at SCDP taking a meeting with a rival, since Ken had sold Heinz Beans on their dependability and loyalty. The leak came from Peggy, whose late night conversations with Stan clued her into "Project K," and her slip-up earns her the cold shoulder from her phone friend. Yet that end of things hardly makes a difference in this instance, as Don's ambitions to expand the reach of SCDP not only blinded him to the threat against his Heinz Ketchup territory (in the form of Peggy), but put him at clear risk of losing the Heinz Beans territory he already had. In brief, it was a rough episode for our favorite adulterous, chain-smoking hypocrite.
Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC
Meanwhile, Joan (Christina Hendricks) is busy adapting to her role as a partner; a role which includes reprimanding the people who work beneath her. When Joan fires Scarlett, one of Harry Crane's secretaries, for leaving early, Harry (Rich Sommer) blows a gasket. He confronts Joan and tells her that she doesn't have the authority to fire Scarlett (with whom he's clearly having an affair), saying that the woman works under him, and that this falls outside her jurisdiction. However, Harry doesn't let the matter rest there. Upon seeing Joan in a meeting with the other partners, Harry storms in and demands to be made partner, arguing that he secured more business for the firm than Joan ever did. He states that he shouldn't be punished for achieving his accomplishments in broad daylight, unlike Joan. This, of course, is in reference to Joan having had to sleep with Herb from Jaguar to secure her partnership, in recompense for winning SCDP the Jaguar account. Harry makes a fool of himself, yet he earns the begrudging respect of Roger (John Slattery) and Bert (Robert Morse), who pay him the money he's owed for the recent business he's brought in.
Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC
Joan, however, is left having to reprimand Dawn (Teyonah Parris), who helped cover up the game of hooky that Scarlett played. She buries her work miseries by having a girl's night out Kate (Marley Shelton), a visiting secretary friend of hers. Their night out to dinner and, later, at a club where Joan hooks up with a random friend of the man Kate is hooking up with, proves to be one of those ponderous sequences that Mad Men does so well. It plays out like a weird dream, something illusory and ephemeral. The sequence also helps further illustrate Joan's status, as Kate communicates what Joan represents to most people who aren't Harry Crane. She's not simply placed on a pedestal as a sexualized object, she's seen as someone who has her life far more together than she actually does. This is not to say that Joan doesn't actually have her life in order, but simply that her status as a partner doesn't exempt her from being second-guessed in the workplace. If nothing else, Dawn gives her the respect to which she's entitled, understanding, as SCDP's only black employee, the feeling of alienation Joan feels as the only female partner in the boardroom. While Harry is fearful of the threat Joan presents to his territory, Joan is simply trying to defend what little territory she has, earning respect along the way -- not terribly unlike the respect to which Harry feels entitled. A lot of these people want the same things, but their differences make it difficult for either party to appreciate their similarities.
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"To Have and to Hold" is another excellent episode in what's shaping up to be a uniformly strong season for Mad Men, as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, and its employees, face threats from within, and without.
