MAD MEN 1.2 – "Ladies Room"

Writer: Matthew Weiner
Director: Alan Taylor

Cast: Jon Hamm (Don Draper), January Jones (Betty), Elisabeth Moss (Peggy), Christina Hendricks (Joan), Robert Morse (Burt Cooper), Rosemarie DeWitt (Midge), John Slattery (Roger Sterling), Michael J.X Gladis (Paul), Aaron Staton (Ken), Rich Sommer (Harry), Bryan Batt (Salvatore) & Maggie Siff (Rachel Menken)

Don continues to cheat on loving wife Betty, while Peggy becomes the subject of amorous advances from men at work...

"Why is it that every time a man takes
you out to lunch, you're the dessert?"

-- Peggy (Elisabeth Moss)

After a slick and polished premiere, Mad Men settles down to business with its first regular episode; having naughty fun with bad-boy Don (Jon Hamm) and his affair with Midge (Rosemarie DeWitt), breezy office-based fun with new-girl Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), and stirring in sexism, medicine, psychiatry and racism...

We left episode 1 with the knowledge that advertising god Don Draper is having an affair, but Ladies Room really makes its case for us to quietly seethe over Don's actions. His wife, Betty (January Jones; best name ever), is not only kind, decent, loving, beautiful and a great mother to their kids, but is also suffering from some kind of neurological disorder. In an early bathroom scene, Betty's hands "go numb" and she can't apply her lipstick, and she later crashes her car into a neighbours' garden while taking her kids to school.

I'm no expert, but it's safe to assume that 60s medicine didn't have much treatment for brain-related problems, meaning Betty is packed off to a psychiatrist – as her doctor believes her ailment must be psychological.

At Sterling Cooper, Peggy is dressing less frumpily than on her first day, and attracts the attention of every man with a pulse – only because she's the new girl, according to flame-haired mentor Joan (Christina Hendricks). Peggy is still keen on exec Pete Campbell (who she slept with), but he's unfortunately away on his honeymoon in Niagara Falls, leaving her open to the various amorous advances.

The episode's advertising project centres on Gillette's Right Guard, the world's first deodorant aerosol (do Gillette pay for the advertising on Mad Men?) It's interesting seeing the "mad men" at work, bouncing ideas around, before Don usually has a brainwave later in the day, but at the moment I'm just amazed advertising was ever considered "glamorous". I can see the allure of being a model, or a photographer, but is it really that wonderful to sit around sipping whiskey all day, surrounded by compliant women in bright, tight skirts? Okay, I concede defeat.

What I'm enjoying at the moment is the leisurely pace episodes tell their easy-to-follow storylines, and the way this not-so-distant past has been brought vividly to life. It's particularly interesting to spot the background injustices of the time; with black workers only fit to be bathroom attendants or serve sandwiches.

Matthew Weiner's script also has clever little touches you might not spot (which I hope were intentional), like the way Don sleeps naked with mistress Midge, but wears striped pyjamas in bed with his wife. Or the almost throwaway shot of a woman crying in a Sterling Cooper bathroom (the sight of which confuses Peggy), before the weeping woman is seen again near the end, and suddenly we suspect she's a glimpse of where Peggy's headed – hiding out in the loos on her lunch-breaks, to escape predatory men in the office.

Ladies Room was good, solid stuff – mainly for the insight into Don's home-life with the wonderful January Jones as Betty, and the genuinely endearing moments with Peggy in the office. I'm not sure exactly where Mad Men is headed, although it seems likely the impending election campaign for "Dick Nixon" will have some bearing on events for Sterling Cooper, and Don's love-life is bound to get more web-like and dangerous. I have confidence Matthew Weiner has a plan, as everything about Mad Men is totally at ease with itself, and events move with a smooth confidence.

I'm not sure I'd call it "essential viewing" just yet, but its quality is undeniably high in production design, acting and writing. If the plots thicken and the supporting characters take on life (the emphasis has only been on Don and Peggy so far), I'm sure Mad Men will have another consumer under their spell in me...


9 March 2008
BBC Four, 10.00 pm