The Televangelist:’Mad Men’ Season 5, Ep 5

Get the gum out from your pubis you grimy little pimp and let’s fight!

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  • AMC
  • “COME AT ME, BRO!”



The pall cast over last week’s episode lingered into this week, with all of our major male characters wallowing in bourgeois ennui. But darn it if it wasn’t entertaining to watch: Whores! Fisticuffs! Ben Hargrove! Reschedule that meeting, Joan - everyone’s in crisis here.

Perhaps no one fell so far or looked so miserable as Pete Campbell last night. Pete is absolutely a “grimy little pimp” (thank you, Lane) and always has been, but for myself, and most viewers, there remains something - if not redemptive or likable, exactly - a forgiveness with Pete. He may be, aside from Don, the most complex character on the show. Or perhaps everything in his life boils down to two things: his ambition and need for respect. He has fought to break into the SCDP named-partners crowd since they began their own agency, although only this year has he pushed so hard for it. He marries a rich, charming girl, moves to the suburbs, has a baby, buys a big stereo to flaunt his wealth, hosts Saturday night dinners, attempts to carry on affairs and goes whoring with the Account team, and what does it get him? Misery, apparently. And it’s awfully close to the same path Don - clearly a role model for Pete - took with his first marriage. But, he continues to be rejected. So now he constantly sneers and makes petulant quips at Roger, Don and Lane, none of which of course endear him to them any further. And in one of the most hilarious and simultaneously poignant scenes in “Mad Men” history, it lead to a fight!

A battered Pete on the elevator said heartbreakingly to Don, “we’re supposed to be friends!” and commented morosely, “I have nothing.” Pete has plenty, as a newly wised-up Don tries to tell him. But do the doodles of a noose (by Don) and a mention of Pete’s unused gun foreshadow a darker future for the young Mr Campbell? He’s not the only one to be caught up in existential melancholy. Lane Pryce, quietly a favorite of mine, also seems to be “without.” His wife doesn’t seem particularly fond of him, he has personal financial issues, he doesn’t feel respected at work and he ultimately wonders if indeed he has any place at SCDP at all. My money was on Lane during the fight as well, if only because the sort of feelings that fueled Pete have been fueling a darkness in Lane for much longer.