Welcome to Mad Cap: a daily rundown of every episode of the acclaimed AMC series Mad Men. During this time, I will be compiling my thoughts and highlights as we travel through every moment and season of the Emmy-award winning drama that has come to define modern TV. The goal is to be a refresher on every moment for Don Draper and his band of advertisement executives leading up to the final season. Stay for all of the shocking moments and the brilliant acting performances, and make sure to chime in with your thoughts and criticisms on why the show means something to you.
Season 4, Episode 4
"The Rejected"
"How did this get sad so fast?"
- Fred Rumsen (Joel Murray)
Plot:
Fred Rumsen (Joel Murray) and Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss) are having difficulties on agreeing on how to best advertising. Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is crushed to realize that he has to drop Ponds cold cream's account in favor of the more successful Clearasil. After a focus group leads Allison (Alexa Alemanni) to freak out, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) fires her. Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) is getting married. Pete and Trudy Campbell (Alison Brie) are having a child. This gets Pete in contact with Tom Vogel (Joe O'Conner), who helps him keep the account. Peggy befriends a person for Life Magazine named Joyce Ramsay (Zosia Mamet) who takes her to her underground art world to find artists who won't conform to their art ways. While Pete befriends his father-in-law, Peggy is finding new friends.
Rating: 4 out of 5
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| Elisabeth Moss |
MVP:
Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss)
It is in a lot of ways the Pete show this week. However, there's still Peggy trying to hold her head above water to breathe air as she battles Fred over how best to advertise. She is the expert who has been there more consistently. She knows what she is doing. Then comes the stinger. When she meets up with Joyce, she begins to find a new life in ways that almost imitate Don's. She is about to enter a world full of renegade artists and drugs in ways that make her desk job seem so tame. It is a great exploitation of how she as advanced as a person and how she will continue to grow. The 60's of the previous seasons of Mad Men is fading for a sloppier, free love style approach. Will it pan out? It probably will. It is 1965 after all.
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| Left to right: Zosia Mamet and Moss |
Best Scene
While we have seen Don sneak into the world of hippies in season 1, it hasn't really been a prominent subject since. It has been a lot of buttoned down culture since then. However, when Joyce appears out of nowhere to rock Peggy's world, the result is something impressive. She is introduced to radical art and people who won't sell out for advertising. It is a place where things seem to be base level and bizarre. It is also the mellowing out that she needs after having to deal with all of the drama at work. I am sure that we'll be seeing a lot more of Joyce as the time goes on. This is Mad Men's entryway into a new era in general. Beyond the more colorful sets, this is the time when radical culture becomes more accepted and the metaphors of a new year, new attitude are being brought into effect now.
UP NEXT: "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword"
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