Our Biggest Challenge Is To Not Get Syphilis

So, I spent most of this episode waiting for Pete Campbell to either go ballistic in the office of SCDPEDBSBSXQJ or jump out a window. 

Not a whole lot happened in this episode OMGZ-wise like last week (like, seriously, WTF), but it was the first full-fledged Joan episode this season, so I was happy that the writing started focusing on Joan being a more active business partner, even though That's Not How Things Work Around Here. I love how Joan is one of the few decent people in a sea of morally bankrupt human beings. She's so decent that it doesn't even bother me when she starts acting like some of the more douchey characters on the show, because she's learned that if you want to play with the big boys, you've got to get your hands a little dirty.

I grew some balls to complement my amazing tatas.

So, in the wake of the Bobby Kennedy assassination, Don is watching the Democratic National Convention. Megan thinks no one will vote for Hubert Humphrey, and Don is skeptical that Nixon will win. Wrong horse, Don. Don's heading out to Cali and invites Megan along, but she can't go. Don and Megan seem a little closer in this episode, but we know it won't be long before he's led astray yet once more.

Back at the office, Ken Cosgrove's been let into double secret offices at GM. There's one GM exec who's giving them a hard time and tabling all their ideas due to a lack of ass kissing. Roger doesn't know his name. Jack Something. All the execs are named Jack. Pete offers to go to Detroit, but Ted says he'll go (and presumably fly himself). Don strolls in late and this commences a  spectacular convo about SCDPCGC being a bit of a mouthful for the clients. The clients don't know the official name of the firm, and neither does the firm itself, so they're all swimming in a sea of letters.

No one has observed the memo that requested specifically that all seven letters be used when answering the phone. Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Cutler Gleason and Shaw. Roger suggests that they all lose a letter, and Don thinks the abbreviation sounds like a stutter. Bert Cooper says he'll  take his name off the list, along with all of the deceased partners. Oh, Bert. We see you there. You're adorably grumpy. Don suggests they just get a bigger front door.

Cutler: Of course you like it. You're at the front. I'm at the end.

Ted: I'm at the end!

That's what she said!

And it's off to LA for Roger and Don to meet with Carnation, leaving Harry Hamlin to meet with Manischewitz. 

On the plane, Roger's annoyed with Don because Don's working on the Carnation Instant Breakfast account. They're execs, says Roger. They're working with rednecks and hayseeds and said rednecks and hayseeds will trust two gentlemen from the big city. Big New York Ad Men. 

Hey, there! Georgie Girl!

Over in creative's freeflowing workspace, Ginsberg and Stan are listening to a news report about Vietnam. Ginsberg is mad because Humphrey doesn't have a peace plan for the war. Cutler wants to know what work they've actually got done on the Manischewitz account and the answer to that question is zero. Zilch. Exactly. Nada. Ginsberg accuses Cutler of being glib about the lack of a peace plan because he's for the war, and Cutler points out that he served in the Air Force. Ginsberg gets ticked off and tells Cutler that Cutler disgusts him and then it devolves into yet another in-office shouting match, in which Ginsberg calls Cutler a fascist and a Nazi (not sure how that works), and Cutler burns Ginsberg by pointing out that Ginsberg is a hippie who cashes checks from Dow Chem. Ouch. 

Then...is it a bird? Is it a plane! It's...it's...it's OUR HERO, Troutshorts (nee Bob Benson). Troutshorts wants to know what this ruckus is about, and Cutler yells at Troutshorts. Poor Troutshorts. Cutler later approaches Troutshorts and asks him to accompany him on the presentation for Manischewitz. One small step for Troutshorts. One giant step for earnest possibly evil account men.

My biography, Full Frontal Nudity: The Making of an Accidental Actor, is available at fine booksellers nationwide.

In Ted's office, Cutler tells Ted he wants to fire some of the SCDP staff, namely Ginsberg. He thinks they should fire the the SCDP people while Draper and Sterling are in LA. Yeah. Because that will go over well. Ted tells Cutler that they can't fire Ginsberg; he's too good. Then Cutler storms out.

Remember Joan's friend Kate? The one who works for Avon? Well, Kate set Joan up on a date. Joan goes to lunch with Andy, an ostensibly divorced man who keeps talking about his wife. He's also the head of marketing for Avon. Andy asks Joan what he should look for in an agency, then it dawns on Joan that this is also a business lunch and she makes her move. Joan sells SCDP. She sells it hard. Andy asks Joan what her job is, and since she can't tell him it's head secretary, she tells him she's in charge of giving people what they want before they even ask for it. Then she pays for lunch. Sold!

Joan comes back from lunch and talks to Peggy. Peggy urges Joan to set a meeting, even though Don and Roger are out of town. Peggy's stoked. Peggy suggests that they take it to Ted, and Joan's concerned about getting kicked off the account. But Peggy urges Joan to ask to be the account man, and Joan sees her opportunity. 

Peggy approaches Ted and tells him the news, and Ted brings in Pete Campbell (and also makes him head of new business, which Pissy Pete doesn't want because, like, OMG he's twelve). Ted instructs Pete to set a meeting for the next day with Peggy, and unwittingly excludes Joan. Joan insists on coming to the lunch, and Pete insists that, under no uncertain circumstances, that this is how things are done. Joan's offended and walks away insulted. Pete, however, assures Joan that she'll get all the credit. Yeah. Right.

Don, Roger and Harry Crane pull up at their hotel in swinging 60s style. Don's grumpy because Roger kept talking on the plane, and Roger's grumpy that Don doesn't want to par-tay. Don's a Responsible Husband and Father now, Roger. Harry Crane, however, has been invited to a party in the Hollywood Hills with some movie and TV execs. I'm sure there's no way that could possibly end badly.

You folks want to see me give Slattery a wedgie? Hold on. This cracks him up when I do this.

On the teevee news,  protesters are being arrested and clubbed for demonstrating outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which was held at the Chicago Hilton. Megan on the phone with Don and expresses that she's upset, and Don tactfully reminds her that she can't vote. 

Peggy shows up the the lunch and Joan walks in, sans Pete, and tells Peggy that she didn't invite Pete. Joan tells Peggy that she can leave, but before she can, Andy arrives and Joan introduces them and sells Andy on Peggy.  Peggy starts babbling about her Avon lady and Joan takes charge of the meeting. Andy expresses his frustration with nagging sales, what with these working females and these darn hippies who don't wear make-up. Peggy asks Andy if he thinks that maybe his ad campaign might be intentionally old-fashioned,

and suggests that they have the Avon lady come to the office. Joan even comes up with a tag line, "There's no doorbell in an office." Peggy smiles politely, but sister knows she's been upstaged. 

Meanwhile at Carnation, Harry, Roger and Don are meeting with Mitt Romney's Zombie. Mitt Romney's Zombie is gleefully expressing his opinion that the Democrats are dead. Maybe not even just for now. MAYBE FOREVER. BWAHAHA.

Oopsie.

In walks Jack, the head honcho at Carnation.Remember when Roger said they're all named Jack? THEY'RE ALL NAMED JACK. 

Jack is mad that they were laughing about the riots and how said riots handed the election to Nixon. Jack is offended and thought last night was disgusting. Because the protests lacked eight essential vitamins and minerals and were a delicious way to start your day? Because police were beating people who were exercising their constitutionally protected right to protest? No! Because of Those Damn Long-Haired Hippies! They shamed this country. Can Nixon fix that? Nixon's an opportunist. You know who's a patriot? Dutch. Reagan. That's who. Now let's talk about how our nasty ass processed chalky instant food product is part of this complete breakfast.

Peggy is PISSED at Joan. She tells Joan that, on no uncertain terms, Joan threw away her access to the Avon account. Joan feels like Peggy doesn't respect her, and Joan feels like Avon is hers. Joan and Peggy hash it out, with Peggy reminding Joan that she used to ridicule her when Peggy first started writing copy. Joan insults Peggy by insinuating that Peggy rode Don's coattails and didn't work hard enough on her own, and Peggy retorts that she never slept with Don. Joan takes that comment personally, and reminds Peggy that the only thing that matters now is who has a personal relationship with the client and that's Joan. 

Benson's in his office, honest to shit listening to a vinyl recording on how to be a good salesman, when Stan beckons him into his office. Ginsberg is having a full on panic attack and wants to bow out of the Manischewitz meeting. Troutshorts goes all motivational speaker on Ginsberg, but Ginsberg's convinced that he's part of the Dark Side. Troutshorts tries to convince Ginsberg that Manischewitz isn't a bad company; they're YOUR PEOPLE.  Then Ginsberg asks TS if TS is a homo. Yes, it's a great day for political correctness.

Roger is all dressed up in the latest Aristotle Onassis fashions. Our slick, cool cats, Don and Roger, are heading to the Hollywood Hills party. No, you're not hallucinating. They are, in fact, playing Harper Valley PTA. Things go pretty well until Roger runs into Jane's cousin,  Danny. Remember Danny? Danny worked for SCDP for a hot minute while Roger was married to Jane. He wasn't very good at advertising, but he's become a Hollywood director/producer in the mean time. Roger opens with his usual round of 12-year-old boy charm, and tells a string of short jokes that aren't even worthy of Cartman. Roger, you are a total square.

Don's talking to some hipster guy out near the pool who does jingles, and he's distracted by ladies in bikinis. He excuses himself and wanders into an ashram, where there are several stoned people worshiping at the ganja altar. This Bettyish blonde offers Don "a nipple" (not that kind of nipple, you pervs) and Don sits down and tokes up. 

Again, I want to remind people that there is no way that this could possibly go wrong.

Roger starts hitting on Danny's old lady, Lois, who is, of course, tripping on acid. Danny approaches and tells Lois it's time to leave, and Roger starts in with the smack talk, which ultimately ends in Danny punching Roger directly in the nutsack. See, it helps to be short.

Inside the party, Don's cornered the Bettyish blonde in a corner and he's baked. Yes, here we go again with Don cheating. Then Megan shows up. And she tells him she's totally okay with all this free love. At this point, we know Don's hallucinating because Megan would cut off his balls if she caught him with another woman. THC Delusion Megan leads Don through the party, where she reveals she is pregnant. WHAT? Then she morphs into the Vietnam soldier from the season premiere. Remember him? The one who got married on the beach. Anyway, he's real dead now. Then Don thinks he fell into the pool and drowned, but it turns out he just fell in the pool. And he is high. He is really, really high.

Make the most of the hemp seed! And sow it everywhere!

On the up side, Ted has great news! He kissed the right asses and things are a go and troublesome Jack is off the account. Troutshorts comes in and tells them that Manischewitz has put them in review because they haven't been happy with their work. Cutler was supposed to go to the presentation for Manischewitz, but he let Bob and Ginsberg take it. Cutler puts Troutshorts on the Chevy account without first consulting Ted, and Ted feels like Cutler is trying to split the firm in half. (Spoiler alert: he is). Cutler is nonplussed. 

Don's hung over and dying of TB on the flight back to New York. Roger gives Don some uncharacteristically sage advice, gleaned from his shrink. According to Roger's shrink, it's the business of our lives to know ourselves and love who we are. Will Don take his advice to heart or lapse back into a downward spiral of self-loathing? The voyeur in me hopes it is the latter.

MEANWHILE, Pete is royally pissed at Joan. He calls Joan into the conference room and rips into her. Pete's riled up because Avon sent over a box of samples to the girls and Andy left a note on the box about a "productive breakfast." 

I sent you to the store to get cake! 

Pete throws a temper tantrum (because he's a tween girl), and Joan tries to explain it away as confusion. This is such BS on Pete's part because you know he'd be the first to throw someone else under the bus and steal their client. Peggy bursts in and Joan has it out with Pete, with Pete accusing Joan of sleeping with Avon (literally) to gain an upper hand with the client and Joan says, "Because it's better than being screwed by you."

Pete storms out and brings in Ted, hoping that Ted will back him up. Ted comes in and scolds Joan and Pete kicks Peggy out of the meeting. Fortunately for Peggy, there's a one-sided window in Joan's office (with audio), so Peggy listens in on the convo. Pete continues to throw a fit, and tells Joan that she breached the fundamental rules of how the business works. Peggy hastily scribbles a note and sends Meredith in to deliver it in the conference room. Meredith reads out the fake message, which reads that Andrew Hayes from Avon is on the phone for her. Ted angrily orders Joan to go take the call and Pete continues to be pissy. Ted tells Pete he needs to suck it up. Joanie thanks Peggy for saving her ass, and Peggy tells Joan to hope that Andy really calls.

Well, this is just a little Peyton Place and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites.

Pete's waiting for Don and Roger when they arrive, and then the partners meet in Don's office. Roger's nonplussed about the Manischewitz account because he's been expecting it, so he effectively asked Cutler to cover an account he was already pretty certain they were going to lose. On a happier note, they've decided on a name, and they're dropping all the partners except Roger and Bert from the firm's name. Heretofore, they will be known as Sterling, Cooper & Partners. Pete tries to warn Don that there's all kinds of mutiny and shenanigans a-happening, and Don tells Pete that if he doesn't like it, then he should get out of the business. 

Pete wanders aimlessly into creative. One thinks he's going to go all Lane Pryce on us all, but Pete may be too ineffectual to actually kill himself. He instead just steals a joint from Stan. 

Only three more episodes this season. 

Recapping AHS: You’ve Got the Cutest Little Bloody Face

As we begin, Jude is out of the habit and arriving at the apartment of a Mr. Goodman at the urging of Mother Claudia following last week’s conversation. Jude asks Goodman if he requires payment, but he demurs saying he sees what he does as a calling. Jude gives the man, clearly a Nazi hunter, the lowdown on Arden. Goodman tells Jude about Operation Paper Clip and says that if Arden is indeed a former Nazi doctor, he’ll have a tattoo of his blood type on his bicep. In the asylum, Anne has dragged Arden by gunpoint to Sister Eunice. She demands to see Jude, but is stopped by Frank the security guard.

Act I! Jude is waiting over a sedated Anne in her cell, something she has a tendency to do. Anne tells Jude to check Arden’s lab for the “monster” that she saw there. Arden has been taken to the hospital, so Jude doesn’t have much time. Jude has already done this, but found nothing, certainly not Shelly. Meanwhile, Anne’s husband has arrived. He reports that her real name is Charlotte and that she started acting strange after their son was born, reading Anne Frank’s diary and seeing a play about her. Charlotte even went so far as to tattoo her own arm with an Auschwitz number and filling a room with newspaper clippings about the Nazis.  Dr. Thredson overhears this and suggests that it sounds like post-partum depression. Jude agrees that Anne should be returned to her home and kept out of the asylum. Anne is brought to the lobby, but insists that she doesn’t know her husband and that she really is Anne Frank. Once her husband shows her a picture of her with their infant son, however, she begins to remember and allows herself to be escorted out. Something tells me she’ll be back. Thredson, meanwhile, wants to know why Jude is going to sterilize Kit and Grace.  Jude is all Whatever, my house, my rules. In their separate cells, Kit and Grace try to comfort each other. Kit says that Alma always wanted kids, so this sterilization thing is, like, harsh, yo! Grace says no one is to blame but Jude, who Grace thinks is the devil. Cue Sister Eunice’s sudden arrival. Very sly, show! Eunice tells Kit that Jude has changed her mind and that he will not be sterilized, however Grace is not going to be so lucky. As Kit is released from solitary, Grace screams and cowers in her room. As the night drags on and she is left alone, a bright light appears at her door, shaking everything.

"Get away from her, you bitch!  Oh, sorry - wrong movie. Carry on."

Act II! Thredson tells Lana to be ready to leave at 6pm in the lobby. He then goes to Kit for another session, bringing along a tape recorder. He tells Kit that maybe if he heard his own voice recounting his crimes, that will trigger his memory of what really happened. Ummm…’kay. Anyway, Kit agrees and begins to make a recording. Meanwhile, Grace is strapped naked to a table somewhere very white with an extremely pregnant Alma who tells her not to fight. Suddenly there are aliens cutting into Grace’s abdomen as she screams. In her office, Jude’s Nazi theory about Arden has taken a hit with the revelations about Anne. Arden has returned using a cane with a wolf’s head to walk with. Jude attempts to apologize and start afresh with him, but he tells her that he’s going to press charges against her, claiming that her ineptitude caused his injury and that he will demand of Monsignor that she be removed from the asylum. Arden retreats to his rooms to change the bandage on his leg and finds Eunice waiting for him. She offers to help, apologizing for her sexy talk previously and then getting down on her knees in front of him because Sister got GAME, you guys! Eunice admits she was the one who dragged Shelly out of the lab and into the woods before she could be found. Eunice believes once Jude is gone, Arden will take over and he’ll need a strong right hand. At that moment, in a local schoolyard, a little girl hears wheezing coming from down a stairwell behind the school. When she looks down into it, she sees a mutated Shelly crawling toward her.

In fairness, her left side is her better one.

Act III! Anne is being dragged back into the asylum. CALLED IT! Apparently she didn’t take to civilian life too well and tried to smother her colicky son with a pillow. Anne’ husband wants Thredson to look at Anne again. This is horrible timing, because guess who is waiting for Thredson in the lobby to spirit her away to freedom? Lana makes her escape while Thredson distracts the front door guard with a cigarette, which just goes to show how lax the security is at Briarcliff. Back at Anne’s cell, her husband comes across Arden who is just leaving it. Arden tells him that there is a way to make Anne “a new woman” and it can be done right away – transorbital lobotomies, anyone? Yes, that’s the one where they shove an ice pick into your eye to sever the tissue in your brain. In his lab, Arden straps Anne down and sedates her while her husband watches nervously. With a confident flick, Arden hammers the pick into Anne’s eye socket. Jude, meanwhile, is praying in her room when Frank the guard tells her that Lana has gone missing. Jude recounts a story from her childhood about trying to keep a baby squirrel as a pet because she was lonely, only to have it die despite Jude’s hours of praying for it. When young Jude asked her mother why God didn’t answer her prayers, mother said through a glass of whiskey that God always answers prayers, just not how we expect. Jude knows her time at the asylum is over and Jessica Lange just nails this scene as per usual. She removes her habit and puts on civilian clothes, does her hair and heads off the local bar where a man buys her a drink. 

Man, when Jude falls off the wagon she really skydives off that sucker, huh?

Act IV! Thredson has brought Lana to Don Draper’s house his swanky apartment. He says they’ll go to the cops in the morning and blow the lid off Braircliff, but Lana must not contact anyone in the meantime since he technically has broken the law getting her out of there. Lana accepts a glass of wine that he has poured her as Thredson says she’s going to win a Pulitzer for writing about this and how she’s the perfect one to tell his story. Right about this time, Lana notices that the lampshade next to her has…um…nipples. And the mint dish on the table looks like a hallowed out cranium. Um… Lana needs to find the bathroom. She heads down the hall, checking for unlocked doors and only finding one – it’s a cross between torture chamber and hobby desk. Thredson finds her and says he uses it to make furniture, lamps mostly. Using skin. He presses a button and the floor underneath Lana gives out, plunging her into a dungeon. Back in the asylum, Grace is found on a chair in the common room, bleeding from between her legs. The cops come to arrest Kit, saying Thredson gave them his taped confession. Grace screams that Alma is alive! Back on the set of the movie Saw Thredson’s basement torture room, Lana awakens chained to the floor with Wendy’s corpse next to her. Thredson says he would normally have removed Wendy’s skin and head, but he wanted her fresh for Lana. He asks Lana to kiss Wendy’s lips, which has built into his mask of human skin. Yup, Thredson is Bloody Face. In the morning, Jude wakes up in a cheap motel next to the man from the bar and Anne has turned into a Stepford wife, making pot roast and preparing martinis. She’s cleaned up all of Nazi clippings and is throwing them away. We see one of the pictures is of Hitler addressing a crowd. Hey, who’s that very Arden-looking guy standing next to Adolph in the picture?

Next week! The devil in Sister Eunice…

Recapping AHS: Anne Frank, C'est Moi

The cops have brought a woman to Briarcliff because she attacked two businessmen after they used a Jewish slur. Jude says she isn't immune to the atrocities “your people” suffered and wants to know if the woman lost someone in the Holocaust. The woman just whistles a tune and Jude sighs, yup she’s bonkers, we’ll start in on her in the morning. In the lab, Shelly isn’t looking too good – she’s got blisters and growths on her face and she asks Arden if she’s going to die. Arden injects her with something and tells her that she’s going to live forever.

Act I! Arden has been beating Kit to find out more about the implant which has gone missing. Kit recounts what Arden’s been doing to him to Grace and asks her to tell him why she is here. Grace says she awoke in her family’s farmhouse to strange thumping sounds before finding her father is his room, blood everywhere and a man burying an axe into his back. Grace ran to hide from the man in a closet, but wouldn’t you know it – the remains of her stepmother, all multiple segments of them, were already there. She tells Kit that the murderer was her stepsister’s secret lover and that they killed the family and framed her for it in order to make off the with farm. Thredon tells Lana he doesn’t believe she’s dangerous and that if he can convince Jude that he’s cured her, they’ll let her go. Lana reminds him that perhaps she doesn’t need curing, homophobe. In the common room, the new woman writes a letter to someone named Kitty saying how she is once again imprisoned but vows to hold on to hope. Lana warns her not to let the guards see her writing anything. Just then Arden enters the common room. The woman approaches him, screaming that he was there at Auschwitz and that he’s a Nazi. The guards hold her off as she screams that Arden should remember her – she is Anne Frank. This show’s penchant for historical cameos continues, apparently.

I know that first diary worked out well for you, but you may want to hold off on a sequel in here...

Act II! Jude meets with Anne in her office telling her that her identity will be a relief to a lot of school children. Anne says she escaped the mass graves before meeting a US Army Private and coming with him to America, but he was killed in Korea. She never came forward because she realized she could do more to tell people about the Holocaust as a martyr than a living woman. Anne says that Arden was one of the Nazi doctors going by the name of Hans Gruber. At first he seemed kind, bringing sweets to the woman and holding off guards. He would select particular girls for treatment, though they never came back well. Anne shows Jude a tattoo of a number on her arm as proof that she’s telling the truth. Thredson tells Kit that he must own up to what Thredson believes really happened – Kit married Alma in secret and became ashamed of it until the pressure built and Kit began to attack other women, beheading them and removing their skin to compensate for Alma’s skin. When the “friends” who threatened Kit in the first episode came to the House, Kit snapped and bludgeoned his wife to death. In the common room, Lana begins to imagine that rather than standing in line for meds, she is accepting a Pulitzer Prize for her writing about the asylum, recalling the treatment there and how she did whatever she had to do to get out. Coming out of the reverie, she asks Thredson to begin his therapy. In the Kitchen, Kit doubts his own memories and is beating up some dough. Apparently stress baking is a common trait in this place. Grace tells him to trust his own memories before you know it, another round of tabletop sex begins but the two are caught by a guard.

Act III! Sister Eunice is gleefully selecting a large cane for Jude to use to beat Grace and Kit with. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately,” says Jude, “but it’s a decided improvement.” Heh. I see what you did there, show! Jude decides that while the cane would be nice, sterilization is the best option. As Grace is dragged off, Euince shows Kit Grace’s file, saying Grace isn’t what she pretends to be. Jude meanwhile has been tipped off that there are detectives in Arden’s office who are looking into a report from a prostitute about Arden. The detectives are looking for a character witness. Jude says when it comes to Arden’s character, she has plenty to say. The detectives report that the prostitute found Nazi memorabilia in Arden’s house, which catches Jude’s interest. The detectives are also curious as to how Kit could have had the skill to remove a woman’s skin and head and isn’t it possible someone else may have been involved? Meanwhile, Thredson is showing Lana pictures of pin-up girls while giving her a drug to make her vomit. One of the images in particular is of Wendy, taken from the house. Pictures and vomit not being enough, Thredson has also arranged for a young man to help “liberate” Lana by allowing her to touch him while Thredson orders her to masturbate. Incidentally, only in Hollywood would you have a gay man ordering a straight woman who is pretending to be gay to please herself while performing a sex act on a male model. Sister Jude tells Monsignor that Arden has been hiring prostitutes and is probably a war criminal and the cops are getting involved and Jesus H. Christ where the hell did you find this guy and why is he here? Jude confesses that her information comes from a patient who is claiming to be Anne Frank, which coupled with Monsignor learning that Jude was pretty much three sheets to the wind during movie night, pretty much undoes her argument. Once Jude leaves, Monsignor calls Arden to tell him, “they’re on to you – time to ditch the legless sex addict you’re keeping down there.”

My source? A mental patient. They can't all be Deep Throat, okay?

Act IV! Jude tells the Mother Superior about Arden and says that Monsignor is disinclined to act. Mother Superior tells Jude to follow her compass, like she did when she first came to her for drinking. Locked in their separate cells, Kit wants to know why Grace lied to him about her story. Grace tearfully confesses that her father was molesting her for years and her stepmother was complacent in it and that’s why she went all Lizzie Borden on them. Thredson comes to Lana in the common room and gives her the picture of Wendy. He tells her that he’s going to get her out of the asylum at the end of the week. Crap. This totally means that Thredson is going to become a patient before this whole thing is over, right? Kit comes to Jude, saying he wants forgiveness for his crimes, saying he doesn’t remember anything and that he must have made up his story because aliens can’t really exist, right? Jude has a look on her face that says, “Ha! Yeah..um..about that…” Arden has gotten a hold of Anne and dragged her into his lab. Anne again accuses him of being at Aushwitz, but Arden insists he’s never been there and is from Scottsdale. He locks the door and starts to unbutton his pants, but Anne pulls a gun that she stole from a guard earlier. She shoots Arden in the knee before hearing a sound from one of the room’s closets. She opens the door to see a badly mutated Shelly on the floor, who begs to be killed. 

Recapping AHS: The Perfect Storm

Starting in the present, Teresa is hiding in the cell watching Bloody Face carve up poor Leo before he comes for her as well. Bloody Face’s efforts are thwarted by a frustratingly alive (but still arm-less) Leo, who plows into him allowing Teresa to make a run for it. Bloody Face follows, pulling a gun and shooting Teresa in the head and Leo in the chest. At which point we see that there are two Bloody Faces who pull off their masks to reveal a couple of fraternity rejects who are getting a kick out of killing newlyweds who like to boink in abandoned asylums. Or something. The faux Bloody Faces wonder what could have torn off Leo’s arm when they are approached by a third Bloody Face from the shadows coming at them menacingly.

Act I! In the asylum, Sister Eunice reports to Sister Jude that Hurricane Sandy a big nor’easter is about to blow in while at the same time slipping her an old newspaper from 1948 that has an article about a young girl killed in a hit and run. No surprise, it’s the girl that Jude ran over. In his lab, Dr. Arden examines the alien bug he pulled from Kit’s neck. Jude apparently has a stress baking problem, because she heads to the kitchen to knead bread and/or guilt as Dr. Thredson tries to convince her that maybe Skinnerian psychology would be a better approach, or at least a less creepy one, to treating the inmates. Jude is “a beacon of compassion” and to prove it she’s gotten permission to show The Sign of the Cross to distract the inmates while the storm blows in. Thredson wants copies of the possessed boy’s files, saying he must have died of natural causes. Jude is all, yeah, right. 17-year-old with a heart attack. Totally natural. Eunice informs the inmates that they’ll all be together in the dark to watch a movie about the death of Christians and won’t that be fun? (Sidebar, I kind of like the demon’s sense of humor.) Kit and Grace plan to escape during the storm, but Kit is called to Arden’s office who suspects that Kit was planted in the asylum to spy on him by the East Germans, the Jews, the mafia, the Illuminati, the cast of Jersey Shore and every other offensive stereotype. Eunice brings Jude some communion wine, saying someone’s been drinking it before taking a long swig herself. Jude demands to know why Eunice is wearing bright red lipstick. Eunice says it’s “Ravish Me Red” and that Arden told her it was Jude’s favorite color. Demon: 2. Jude: 0. 

It's actually "Berry Sunrise", but hey, demons lie, right?

In her cell, a Mexican woman who recognizes that Eunice is possessed cries and prays as Eunice comes to her, demanding that they pray together. Eunice suddenly stabs her with a pair of scissors, spilling blood everywhere. Eunice throws the Mexican (Seriously, that’s what they call her. No other name.) into the woods to be eaten by the creatures there. Eunice is no longer afraid of them, but that’s possession for you.

Act II! Eunice tells Arden that the creatures are getting hungrier, but Arden says they just have to make it through the winter. It take Eunice/Demon all of two minutes before she starts with the sexy talk, hiking up her skirts and offering herself to Arden in graphic terms on his desk. Arden slaps her and calls her filthy, but is clearly shaken. Eunice just laughs and leaves. In the common room, Lana approaches Thredson and asks him to get a message to Wendy. In the kitchen, Shelly asks Grace if she can join in the escape attempt, saying she wants out so she can go to France where they’re more open about sex. Jude meanwhile confronts Arden about the red lipstick. Arden says he believes that Eunice has been corrupted by the asylum and specifically by Shelly. Jude believes Arden is using the newspaper and the lipstick to drive Jude from her position so he can take over the asylum. Back in her office, the phone rings and it’s the voice of the dead girl who taunts Jude saying she just left her there and didn’t even get out of the car. Jude sobs and notices the dead girl’s shattered glasses somehow on her desk. In her misery, Jude reaches for the bottle of wine that Eunice left earlier, despite saying she’s sworn off all spirits.

Act III! Jude has officially fallen off the wagon, drinking by herself in her office. Add a little Sex and the City and basically this would be a modern liberated woman’s standard Friday night. A very tipsy Jude heads to the common room to introduce the inaugural movie night (“either a beloved tradition or just another bitter disappointment” – I seriously love it when Jude gets existential) as the storm begins. Everyone’s accounted for except the Mexican. Jude then quotes Carousel at them and tries to be inspirational, but it’s like when your crazy drunk aunt tries to be poetic at Christmas dinner and then Jude has a breakdown remembering the girl she ran over, which honestly is also kind of like your crazy drunk aunt. Thredson tells Lana that he went to Wendy’s house, but she wasn’t there though there was blood on the floor and he now suspects that Kit may not be Bloody Face at all. Grace and Kit get out of the common room by saying they have to use the bathroom which is basically every high school kid’s excuse ever. Lana uses a scene of a woman bathing naked to do the same, arguing that the scene is counter-productive to her treatment. Points to Lana this round. Jude prowls the asylum looking for the Mexican when something moves in the dark and an alien suddenly comes out of the shadows. Arden, meanwhile, finds a white statue of the Virgin in the asylum vestibule and decorates it lasciviously with the red lipstick before calling it a whore and smashing it. Lana finds Grace, Kit and Shelly and apologizes to Kit, offering to help them escape. First they have to get past an orderly, which Shelly volunteers to…um…distract. Blowjobs commence. Lana, Kit and Grace make it to the chute and escape outside while the storm rages. Shelly attempts to follow but is discovered by Arden.

Act IV! Lana, Grace and Kit run into the forest before discovering the Mexican’s half-eaten body as well as the things doing the eating. The creatures, which look a lot like the undead, chase them back into the chute. Have to say, I think the asylum is preferable actually. 

WE HAVE ZOMBIES, PEOPLE!!!

In the common room, Eunice is getting particularly into the movie as it approaches the scene where the Christians all get eaten by lions. Heh. Arden throws Shelly into his lab and begins to take off his pants. Shelly sees what he’s packing and starts laughing in spite of herself. Not smart, Shelly. Arden knocks her out. Eunice finds Jude in her room, though she doesn’t remember how she got there. Jude shuts down the film after hearing that inmates have gone missing. The inmates are upset the movie isn’t over, but Jude is all whatever they all die spoilers. Lana, Kit and Grace have made it back to the room, though, so who are the missing inmates? In Arden’s lab, Shelly wakes up strapped to table as Arden tells her that everyone thinks she’s in the woods. Shelly begs him to let her walk out of here, but Arden says that’s not possible and reveals that he has amputated her legs below the knee to keep her from running away. OMGWTF!!!

What Lurks in the Hearts of AMC

In the latter half of the 1960s, America and the world were changing rapidly. Not that you’d know that watching this last season of Mad Men. Season five’s opening episode, “A Little Kiss”, which dealt so directly, if heavy-handedly, with the emerging issue of civil rights in America gave me some false hope that our “heroes” may be given more to interact with than their own internal office drama. With “The Phantom”, the fifth season finale, I’ve officially grown worried that Mad Men has fallen too in love with its characters to give us any kind of genuine story.

Rather than jump head-long into the simmering issues that the first episode raised, we barely got a couple of nods to the larger world. Peggy sort of befriended the one black secretary, but still worried that she would steal from her purse when Peggy wasn’t looking. Paul Kinsey resurfaced as a Hare Krishna and Roger Sterling took acid, presumably as a way of reminding the viewers that there was, in fact, a counter-culture developing while men in white shirts decided what slogan a bean company needed on its product. But still, the majority of time was spent on Lane’s money woes, Joan’s hideous mistreatment by the men around her and, of course, Megan, Megan and a bit more Megan for good measure.

 Believe it or not, there used to be other women on this show.

I’ve harshed on this show before, mostly because it never met a theme that it didn’t love to beat you about the head with for 60 solid minutes at a time, 13 weeks out of the year. It’s engrained in the show’s DNA to telegraph the big messages, almost like it doesn’t trust the viewers to arrive at those revelations on their own. The thing is, up until this season I pretty much still trusted the show to deal with the realities of its own set-up for each of its characters. Now, I’m not so sure.

It’s always amazing to me when I hear people, women in particular, talk lovingly about Don Draper. In a conversation with a co-worker about this season, she was distressed by the implication in the final moments of this season that Don is soon to be returning to his lying, philandering way after a season of bliss with his new wife. The thing is, when he does cheat again (because you know he’s going to; first of all, that’s how a show creates drama and second of all, Don’s a cad and always will be) I’m convinced that the writers won’t actually make him pay for it. Rather than lose the illusion of his life that is so important to him, which would constitute actual tragedy in the Arthur Miller sense, I get the sense that Don’s happiness has become too important for the writers themselves. He’s their baby and like any good parent, they simply don’t want him to get hurt.

Before I get accused of being too unduly bitter, there were aspects of the season that I thought were well done. As is typical, most of that credit goes to Peggy and Joan and both the actresses playing them and the writing given to them. In particular, “The Other Woman”, episode 11, was possibly the best hour of the show I’ve ever seen. (And, not coincidentally, the first one where I felt like the writers let the audience naturally figure out the point instead of hanging a few neon signs out for us to see.) While playing with the notion of a trendy sports car as the metaphorical woman that all men want but can’t really afford to have, the fact that Don is in that situation almost completely passes him by. Though in his case, the unattainable other woman isn’t the next sexual conquest but is Peggy, something he doesn’t realize it until it’s far too late. At the same time, Joan is presented with an actual indecent proposal from the slime balls that are her co-workers, literally prostituting her out as the same unattainable paragon for a client. Joan is made a full partner for her efforts, but not without a cost.

 Don't know what you've got til it's gone. Or whore-d out for a client. Didn't Joni Mitchell write something about this?

All of the strum und drang that is so strong in “The Other Woman” just goes to illustrate how frustrating it can be to watch this show. Mad Men clearly understands the concept of ownership and the myriad ways in which society in the 1960s encouraged it, whether that be owning better luxury items and goods to get ahead of your neighbors or literally owning other people. Rather than wrestle with those issues and how they got played out in the broader picture of 1960s America, we get the sniping and bickering of the Draper family and an entire season about Megan’s desire to be an actress. The promises of the series back in the first season, that we would watch history happen around these characters, have taken a back seat to all the inter-personal stuff.

Season five left me feeling less like I was watching a thoughtful meditation on history, or identity politics, or changing roles in society, and more like I was watching a middle school play, albeit a well-produced one, attended by doting parents.