Mad Men: season four, episode five

SPOILER ALERT: This blog is for those who are watching season four of Mad Men on BBC4. Don't read on if you haven't seen episode four – and if you've seen more of the series, please be aware that many UK viewers will not have done so …

Will Dean's episode four blog

Episode five: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

"If Bernbach can do business with Volkswagen ..." Pete

Tonight combined two of Mad Men's best attributes; dark psycho-weirdness and office japes. I really enjoyed seeing Don use game theory to nail CGC hot-shot Ted Chaough with his pretend Honda ad, designed to make Chaough follow Don in taking a left turn "off a cliff". Using what he's learned in the Chrysanthemum and the Sword about Japan's shame culture, he makes the Honda men feel bad enough about Chaough breaking the rules to reject CGC completely.

It was the Don of old, a mixture of cunning and flair that will secure the company's future, if they get in at the bottom on Honda's car business (the Civic debuted in the US in 1973). It was great to watch – as was Smitty eulogising his old boss; the wonderful scene with Peggy biking around an empty studio; and Joan hooking the ad director with talk of scenes on 5th Ave and the subway.

The more intriguing discussion came with Roger's visceral opposition to working with the Japanese. While everyone else was off reading the Chrysanthemum – Pete's mugging was particularly great here – Roger is booted off to a meeting. When he returns to find his partners meeting Honda, he's about as subtle as the Enola Gay in trying to sabotage the deal. Whether it's for reasons of personal upset or an attempt to undermine Pete's growing authority at the firm, I have a lot of sympathy for him. Of course he's wrong to wreck his firm's success but his war wounds must be still extremely raw – anyone who watched The Pacific (or y'know studied it) will know how brutal the conflict was. Seeing his grip on the company eroded by Pete's burgeoning excellence (note Pete convincing Seacore to make a TV ad, 18 years after they signed) must be hard to swallow. Good on Bert and Joan for reassuring him: "You fought to make the world a safer place, you won, and now it is."

"Punishment will only make this worse." Henry

If Don's slaying of Chaough provided the light relief, Sally's misbehaviour opened a door on the show's darker side. First, while staying at her father's, she cuts her hair in an attempt to look like babysitting neighbour Phoebe. Perhaps not out of any submerged Electra complex, but more just to get the attention of her daddy – who's using one of his rare nights with them to take Bethany to Benihana – by looking like the girls she thinks he likes. More complex is her masturbating at a friend's house. Again, I'd be inclined to think that she's a young girl discovering her body rather than subconsciously trying to show her mother up. Either way, humiliating and assaulting her seems unlikely to rescue the situation. What do you think?

Henry's thoughts that she might be best helped by a child psychiatrist do lead to two very telling scenes. One involves Don – who bumps into psychologist Dr Faye Miller – complaining that people are too willing to talk about themselves, before tricking himself into opening up to her about his kids and his situation. The second with Betty meeting Sally's shrink. Edna explains to Betty that she can't share what Sally tells her, contrasting with Betty's tell-tale shrink in series one. She can't even have the control over her own daughter in the way her husband had over her, which is why she's so angry with Sally. And just in case your Ibsen-klaxon wasn't whirring, we end the scene with Betty channeling Nora Helmer and staring dolefully at A Doll's House.

Notes

Mrs Blankenship is a jewel: "Misters Peters and Pryce to see you."; "GOOD AFTERNOON, YOUR DAUGHTER's PSYCHIATRIST CALLED." Loved her crossword magnifyer too.

It was hard not to chuckle at the thought of Mrs Hofstadt nailing William's 95 Theses on "nudist magazines" on his door.

Carla dropping Sally off at Dr Edna's says it all. Another terrific performance from Kiernan Shipka, nonetheless.

Interesting that Roger has never called Bert out on his Japanophilia?

Culture Watch

"Why don't we just get Dr Lyle Evans in here?" Roger's line as he stormed out the of meeeting caused some tumult - with people thinking Evans was a real person. It was actually a Hucksters reference (remember Caldecott Farms' horsemeat in S3?). Lyle Evans was a maniacal soap company exec in the film – a reference included to highlight the generation gap between Roger and Pete (who didn't get it either).

Pete's entry to Japanese business culture is Ruth Benedict's flawed but hugely influential nevertheless The Chrysanthemum and The Sword which tried to spell out Japanese culture for generations of Americans beginning to do business with them post-war. The full book is here.

Phoebe and Bobby watch Top Cat; meanwhile, Sally watches David McCallum in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. at her sleepover.

Pete's contact at Honda tells him it was a "Margaret Dumont-sized disaster" in honour of the Marx Bros's tall comic foil.

Teddy Choaugh uses the Beach Boys' Help Me, Rhonda to mock them. The song was then surfing up the chart that very month.

A cheeky closing number in Doris Day's I Enjoy Being A Girl. "When I have a brand new hair-do ..."

20th Century Tales

The Selma discussion suggests even Roger is seeing the new way of the world.

Roger: "This Selma thing isn't going away. You still don't think they need a civil rights law?"
Bert: "They got what they wanted, why aren't they happy?"
Pete: "Because Lassie stays at the Waldorf and they can't."

The "38-year-old unitarian minister" being buried as Sally and Bobby watch the news is (the white) James Reeb. He was clubbed to death by a white mob while marching on Selma with King, Lewis and co.

Peggy may or not be the new Edie Sedgwick, but she's still enthralled by a Dippy Bird.

A book based on this blog series comes out on 4 November. You can pre-order it here.

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