Mad Men: I Went To A Garden Party…

Your update on the AMC series' latest episode

Sally steals five dollars from Gene, but after hearing Gene throw veiled accusations Carla's way for the theft, she conspires to return it. When she does, it seems like Gene suspected it was she all along, although he doesn't confront her. That's property destruction and now theft in a three-episode span, though. Can Juvie be far off?

At Patio casting, we learn Smith is still on staff and Harry is a sidelined horndog, only one of those things being a surprise. Ken and Pete then tell Creative that they have to work all weekend while they and Harry head out to Roger and Jane's Kentucky Derby garden party on Long Island. Don and Betty also attend, and it's all mint juleps and pleasantries and Roger in blackface, but Don, not feeling particularly festive or racist, seeks out a quiet corner of the place and bonds with an old coot over their lack of affinity for fancy-shmancy affairs and the people who attend them. Betty, for her part, gets some overly familiar attention from a man who works in the Governor's office, and then Pete and Trudy awesomely tear up the dance floor, doing, I believe, the Charleston. Before they leave, Betty and Don encounter a very drunken Jane, who makes reference to their period of separation, causing Betty to stare daggers at Don. In the aftermath, Roger basically insists on Don telling him off, so Don obliges, saying that everyone sees Roger as not happy but foolish for the whole Jane thing. Roger looks extremely wounded, and I don't think he and Don will be going out for drinks any time soon. Then again, old habits die hard.

Creative, left on their own for the weekend, bitches about Harry and their collective lot in life while drinking like writers should. Paul and Smith then get the idea to throw some drugs into the mix, and the dealer is an old friend of Paul's from Princeton, "Jeffrey Graves," a guy who looks to me a bit like a young Tom Cruise stole Peter Gallagher's eyebrows. Peggy, continuing her campaign to change how people perceive her, gets high with the boys, and then Jeffrey reveals to the others that Paul, despite his airs, is a Jersey boy and also can't sing, which leads to a Princeton duet and Peggy getting the line of the episode. She also saves their bacon while coming up with ideas even while stoned, and tells her new secretary that basically, she (Peggy) is going to be feminism personified. In a nice way, of course.

Finally, Joan and Greg are having a party of their own, a dinner affair for people from the hospital, at which she's chagrined to hear a warning that, doctor or no, Greg's finances are going to be tough for the foreseeable future, and this revelation is compounded by the news that Greg recently screwed up an operation, so his chances of becoming Chief Resident seem basically nil. Joan's mood about all this is not helped when she's basically forced to sing to entertain the partygoers, and the look on her face suggests that Greg is going to be very unpopular in his own home. Which will catch it up with the rest of the world, I'd say.

Discuss this episode in our forums, then see why vloggers Val and Beth think that the women of Mad Men have it pretty good on TV is the Answer. And check back soon for the full recap!

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