Matt Ern
Columnist
Mad Men- Collaborators
Grade: B +
Pete Campbell didnt have much to do in last weeks premiere; he pops up in a few scenes and delivers one-liners before fading into the background. If one was to make assumptions about Pete this season from that episode, he might seem happy. But Collaborators gives Pete a lot more screen time, and shows that hes just as much a sad sack as ever.
While Dons affair with his neighbor Sylvia continues nicely, Petes attempt at an extramarital encounter blows up in his face pretty quickly. He seduces a neighbor, but her husband catches on quickly and violently chases her out of the house. When she turns up on the Campbells doorstep, Trudy is less than pleased. She admits to Pete that shes known what hes been up to for a while and only suggested he get a separate apartment in Manhattan so that he could be more discrete with his affairs. But now that hes had the audacity to sleep with a woman on their block, she wants him out of the house and a divorce.
Despite all the crappy things Pete does, Ive always felt sorry for him. All he wants in life is to be like Don, but he will forever fall short of that. Last seasons excellent Signal 30 was a great example of the Don/Pete parallel, and Collaborators is a worthy follow-up. While Petes marriage falls apart, things couldnt be going better for Don. The universe seems to be throwing Sylvia into his lap when Megan and Sylvias husband both have to cancel their dinner plans and Don is left alone with her. She admits she has some reservations about their affair, and she doesnt know how Don can sit in a room with all four of them like nothing is wrong. But Don puts her in her place in typical Don Draper fashion.
In fact, Dons never been more on top of his game than this episode. At work hes standing up to clients he doesnt like (annoying Pete in the process), and at home he seems to have both Megan and Sylvia. All of this seemingly good fortune only begs the question, how long will it last? Is Don really happy? Probably not. While Trudy stands up to Pete and calls him out on his affairs, Megan spends the episode trying to tell Don about her miscarriage. Dons apparent having it all lifestyle is at the cost of his wifes happiness.
Community- Intro to Felt…
Grade: B
To say this episode is weird or crazy would be an understatement. Its outright bonkers. The premise is very similar to the stop-motion Christmas episode, but with the added task of explaining away Chevy Chase, who left the show around this time of production. He recorded dialogue for the episode, but is never actually seen in it. Im not sure if the idea for puppets came about as a direct result of Chase leaving, or if it was planned all along.
My biggest complaint is that the episode doesnt nail the genre quite as well as the Claymation Christmas one did. The Christmas episode is one of the most emotional episodes the show has ever done; it was also the most creative, being the first time the show attempted to pull off a genre episode in another medium. Intro to Felt Surrogacy feels more like a cheap knock-off, and that works against it when what could have been a decent emotional climax is undercut.
Were treated to a strange story about the group crashing a hot air balloon in the woods and being drugged. Its a very whimsical premise, but an episode done with puppets almost demands something strange for the characters to be singing about. As far as the hot air balloon goes, I think it works well with the genre, but things go awry at the very end.
While theyre all out in the woods, they each reveal their darkest secret and then panic because they think the rest of the group is judging them for it. In fact, no one remembers anyone elses secret until the puppet therapy session. Jeffs was the only one that really had some resonance (though Shirleys was close), the rest were all kind of silly or farfetched. The idea that he would let down a kid and symbolically become like his own dad packs a lot more of a punch than Annie cheating on a test or Britta revealing she doesnt vote. The episode could have been a success if it allowed Jeffs big character moment a little more time to breathe.