Bad for Business, Good for your Sex Life – A Recap of Mad Men’s “Chinese Wall”

“Every time something good happens.  Something bad happens right after,” notes Peggy, upon hearing the news that SCDP has just lost its biggest client.

As luck would have it, Peggy utters the above line just mere moments, after enjoying a morning of crazy hot Morning Sex with her new boy toy, Abe.

Breakfast in bed just got a whole lot yummier!

And yet, to accurately describe this episode, Peggy probably should have said, “Everytime something bad happens, somebody gets screwed.”

Because, for, for better or worse, that was what “Chinese Wall” was about:  Bad News and Good Sex, with a heaping helping of Betrayal thrown in for good measure.  So, without further adieu, let us separate those who got “Lucky,” from those destined to “Strike” out.  (No pun intended.)

(Who am I kidding?  My cheesy puns are ALWAYS intentional.)

“Lipstick on Your Teeth, Told a Tale on You”

Usually when guys want to get my attention, they just smile or wink.  But I guess this works too . . .

When the episode begins, Peggy and Joyce have just finished a relaxing afternoon swimming and getting toasted at Jones Beach. Then, who should “just happen” to appear requesting a ride home?  THIS GUY . . .

It’s ABE!  Mr. “I Wrote a Poem about How You are Employed by Evil Capitalist Pigs, But Only Because I Think Your Sexy!” 

But, let tell you!  Taking an episode off has done WONDERS for this guy’s sex appeal!  Abe went from Sir Crash and Burn to Don Juan in just a few scenes!  It all started when Peggy was “forced” to sit on his lap (crowded car and all).  After Peggy apologized to Abe for any “discomfort” he might be experiencing as a result of said lap sitting, he replied.  “You weigh like a pound, relax!”

Guys?  Don’t let any girl tell you differently.  This line WORKS, and it WORKS WELL!  I got goosebumps just hearing it, and he wasn’t even talking about ME! 

As if that wasn’t enough, Abe starts gently rubbing Peggy’s arm, and making mildly suggestive comments about her love of the water and . . . ahem . . . getting wet.  Is it any wonder that, after that long car ride, she took that Sweet Talker home and had hot sweaty sandy sex with him, multiple times?

Yes, call home and cry to Mommy, Mark, because YOU’VE just been replaced.

The following morning, Abe lingered in Peggy’s bedroom, not sure whether to stay or go.  In a surprising move, Peggy made an “Executive Decision” that he should STAY, reigning him in for an rollicking pre-work roll in the hay!

Now either our girl has become significantly more self-assured and confident in her “old age,” or Abe is a real ROCKSTAR in the sack.  Because Peggy takes the news of Lucky Strike’s abandonment of SCDP remarkably in stride.  “Should I be worried?”  She asks Don innocently, when he calls her into his office, after the staff meeting, during which the news was announced.  “Because you seem like you have things under control.”

When Don tells Peggy that he is counting on her to land the Playtex account, rather than being daunted, she seems entirely open to the challenge.  And by open, I mean really HORNY!  Back in the office, Peggy proposes an almost X-rated latex glove campaign to her colleagues Fred and Barney Flintstone Stan and Little Danny.  Never have ugly yellow gloves, commonly used to clean toilets, seemed so sexy!

Playtex Gloves and Condoms . . . both made out of Latex.  Coincidence?  I think not!

Stan, who no longer seems to be able to look at Peggy, without picturing her naked  . . .

Ahhh, memories!

 . . . is NOTICEABLY aroused by Peggy’s little speech.  (In fact, he immediately places his hands between his legs and squirms about, like a little kid who has to pee.)  Of course, being the “humble” guy he is, Studly Stanley becomes immediately convinced that Peggy has become “sex-crazed” as a result of SCDP’s impending closure, and, therefore, wants to jump his bones.

“In the words of Right Said Fred, ‘I’m too sexy for my shirt’ . . . and for this hideous lime green jacket the wardrobe department dressed me in.”

Stan’s convictions are further strengthened (hardened?) when he catches Peggy banging the delivery guy in her office, a la Samantha Jones in Sex and the City.

“Talk about FAST SERVICE!”

As it turns out, Peggy is not quite as slutty as Stan thinks.  After all, the “Delivery Boy” is someone she knows quite well . . .

“Please accept my large package.”

 Later, while a stressed out Peggy is doing some last minute preparations for her Playtex pitch, Stan offers to help her relax . . . by groping her like he’s a monkey, and she’s a banana tree.

Peggy handles the situation calmly, treating Stan like she would any disobedient dog, using firm and brief commands.  “Stan, NO!”  She enunciates.

Cool off, Hot Dog!

“Why do you keep making me reject you?”  Peggy inquires brusquely.

After minimal protest, Stan backs off.  After all, by getting Peggy riled up and angry, he did succeed in making her less nervous for her pitch.  “Everything good?”  Peggy asks tentatively, worrying that their little encounter will adversely impact their working relationship.

“Absolutely,” says Stan with a little gleam in his eye.  (Already, you know he’s up to something.)

Peggy’s pitch, for all intents and purposes, seems to go quite well.  Of course, she dials the sex aspects down a bit, from the initial pitch she suggested to Stan and Danny.  However, the basic idea is still there.  Playtex even seems amenable to the advertising concept, calling it “romantic.”  The only problem is . . . the client keeps making weird faces at Peggy.

“You have lipstick all over your teeth,” Harry tells Peggy, after the clients have left.

Peggy immediately makes eye contact with that dirty dog, Stan Rizzo.  And this is what she sees . . .

Sorry, Peggy!  You can’t give a guy like that these TWICE . . .

. . . and NOT expect him to take some kind of revenge. 

To Peggy’s credit, she handles the little prank quite well, even managing a toothy, lipstick-covered smile, when she finds out.  It just goes to show you, there’s nothing like a good boinkfest, to put things into perspective.  A little lipstick never hurt ANYONE!

Thanks Abe!

“So Much for my Happy Ending . . .”

When we last left Roger, he had thirty days to break it to his firm that he had lost the ONLY account he had brought in, an account that just so happened to  make up the bulk of SCDP’s business – Lucky Strike.

What Roger didn’t count on was that Lucky Strike’s new firm would start talking out of school.  While at dinner with his new wife, Alex Mack . . .

(Please tell me I’m not the only one who remembers this show . . .)

. . . and her father, The DEVIL!

(a.k.a. Ray Wise from The CW’s Reaper — Mad Men’s guest cast is quickly becoming a Who’s Who in cancelled television programs.)

. . . Ken learns from a competitor that Lucky Strike has jumped ship.  Ken rushes to the hospital to alert Poor Pete Campbell . . .

(You’re going to need a lot more than that one shot to handle this news.)

. . .  whose wife is just hours away from delivering his Baby Girl.  Pete immediately calls Don, who has been too busy screwing Faye, and having paranoid freakouts about his “secret identity” to hear about any of this.

“Why does this sh*t keep happening to me?”

Don calls the rest of the partners, including the sartorially brilliant Bert Cooper, who arrives at the office, still clad in his polka dot P.J.’s.  (Aren’t old people adorable?)

The crew meet up in Cooper’s office, looking as if someone just murdered their puppies.

Roger arrives last.  When confronted with the news, he feigns outrage and disbelief over the loss of an account, despite having known about it for almost a month now.  In a pathetic gambit to save face, Roger fakes a phone call to Lee Garner Asshole Jr.’s home to “confirm the rumor.”  He then offers to go down to North Carolina, himself, in order to save the account.  He doesn’t go.   Instead, he holes himself up in  New York hotel, where he propositions Joan for more back-alley, baby-making, sex.

“Soy un perdedor.  I’m a loser Baby!  So, why don’t you kill me?”

When Roger’s offers of Hot Pity F*cks, with the man who may have single-handedly run SCDP to the ground, don’t make Joan come running naked into his arms, he decides to come to her.  And boy, does this guy know how to turn on the charm.  “Is that what you wear to bed now?”  Roger inquires, scoffing at Joan’s admittedly frumpy housedress.

“Only when I’m pregnant with your bastard child,” replies Joan.

Taking cues from Blue Ball Champ, Stan Rizzo, Roger then throws himself at Joan.

(Now THERE’S a lady who’s NOT enjoying herself!)

When Joan inquires as to why Roger feels the need to squeeze her like an almost empty tube of toothpaste, he replies, seductively, “Because I feel like sh*t and you care about me.”

“Oh Roger!  You had me at ‘sh*t’!”

Joan pushes Roger away, sadly, saying, “I’m not a solution to your problems.  I’m another problem.”

She’s right.  Now Roger has this problem. . .

Roger and Joan hug “goodbye.”  And then, after sadly confirming that the couple’s tryst in the dark alley will be their last lay EVER, Roger trudges out of Joan apartment, like a man walking toward his death . . .

Our tragic anti-hero doesn’t fare much better at work, when Don and Pete gang up against him for muscling Pete out of Lucky Strike, and then ultimately losing the account.  Don tells his partner, in no uncertain terms, that Pete would have handled Lucky Strike more professionally than Roger did.  When Roger turns to Bert for support.  Bert surprises him by saying, “Lee Garner Jr. never took you seriously, because you never took yourself seriously.”

It just goes to show you, you should never underestimate a man who wears polka dot pajamas . . .

The end of the episode finds Roger at home with his wife, flipping through copies of his recently published memoir Sterling’s Gold.  However, based on the way things are going in Roger’s life now, he may have to retitle it this:

(Now, at least we know who will be playing Roger, in the movie!)

Don Draper:  He’s Bringing Slutty Back!

“I’ve got so many notches on my bedpost, it’s starting to look like Swiss Cheese!”

Don is getting some loving from Faye, when he first hears the news about Lucky Strike.

However, the bad news, soon puts a bit of a damper on the fledgling relationship, when he asks her to use inside information she has received from other advertising firms, to help SCDP land accounts with their unhappy clients.  Faye is insulted that Don would even think of using her in this way, and can’t believe her new boyfriend would expect her to jeopardize her own career just to help his.

When Don loses the Glo Coat account, for which he won the Cleo, Don’s mood really goes south, and he starts taking it out on . . . get this . . . soon-to-be-Papa- PETE!

Talk about biting the hand that saved you from an oncoming freight train!  To Pete’s credit, he doesn’t use that opportunity to throw Don under the bus for single-handedly losing the North American Aviation account for the company.  Instead, he simply says, “Just who do you think you are talking to?” which shuts Don right up.

(Unbeknownst to Don, Pete is currently being courted by D-Bag ,Ted Chaugh and his agency . . .

If Don doesn’t straighten up and fly right, he could lose his best account executive for good! )

Speaking of things done in poor taste, just moments after learning that Pete’s wife gave birth to a baby girl . . .

. . . Don and the gang head off to a former competitor’s funeral . . . in hopes of POACHING THE DEAD GUY’S CLIENTS!

“You stay classy, Don Draper!”

Meanwhile, Don’s new secretary, Megan . . .

. . . is working late to get inside Don Draper’s Drawers make sure Don doesn’t exceed his three-drink limit.  She has also busied herself repairing the Cleo Award that Don, in a fit of anger, tossed at the wall, upon losing the Glo Coat account.  Performing this service makes Megan stand out among Don’s previous secretaries (like Allison), who preferred to BREAK items in Don’s office, as opposed to repairing them.

Late at night, after the rest of the office has gone home, Megan asks whether Don needs any sexual favors help.  Megan tells Don that she is a stripper artist, with a strong desire to eventually become the next Peggy Olson or Don Draper.  Yet our suspicions of her true motives are immediately peaked when Don agrees to “teach” her the ins and outs of advertising, and she immediately rises to LOCK DON’S DOOR, despite the fact that the office is EMPTY.

“Business talk” only lasts a few moments, before Megan is shamelessly flirting with the Dapper Don Draper, telling him how much she “admires” him, and how she “can’t stop thinking about him.”  Megan then pretty blatantly propositions Don for sex.  He is initially hesitant.  However, after Megan insists that she won’t end up crying over him the next day, like SOME people .  . .

 .  . . THIS happens . . .

(Well, Megan . . . I guess that’s one way to get A HEAD in business . . .)

After their “tutoring session,” Don arrives back at his apartment (still reeking of Megan), when he learns he has a visitor . . .

As it turns out, Faye has decided she is willing to jeopardize her career for Don the Schlong Draper after all!  In fact, Faye didn’t just tell Don that Heinz Ketchup was upset with its current firm representation, she went as far as to set the company up to meet with SCDP, herself.  (Faye is an IDIOT!)

But, hey, without SCDP, there’s no Mad Men, so . . .

Any “IDIOT” who can keep SCDP in business, and, by extension, Mad Men on the air, is OK in my book . . .

[www.juliekushner.com]