“Mad Men” gave us one of the best episodes ever this week in the form of “The Other Woman.” This time the storyline revolved around 2 people. Don, Joan and Peggy. Let’s start with Peggy. Due to the Jaguar pitch being the focus of all the men in the office, Peggy has to take care of all of the other business. While she is happy to be trusted with so much responsibility, she is disappointed that she is not being appreciated with catered lunches full of lobsters. To make matters worse, after she convinces a client to not pull a commercial she gets no praise and instead has money thrown at her face. This drives her to take a lunch with Freddy Rumson, who encourages her to try and spread her wings. We next see her take a meeting with Ted Chaough, Don’s arch-nemesis, who offers her a very good job and promises her appreciation.
Before getting to the end of her story let’s check in with Joan. It turns out that one of the people that will vote on the Jaguar ad campaign is a super pervert and is demanding a night with Joan for his vote. Pete, being the most perverted of the partners, pushes for ways to make this happen. Don wants no part of it and Roger can’t believe she would even consider it. After agreeing to $50,000 to offer her, Lane, who is still trying to hide his embezzlement, convinces her to instead ask for a partnership in the company. Pete works to make this happen and now that he feels more empowered at work he brings up the apartment again at home to Trudy. Her response shows us that not only is Pete not really in charge at work, but he has barely any say in things at home.
While all of this is going on Don and the boys are trying to come up with a slogan while at the same time dealing with the fact that Megan may have to go to Boston for a play. Fortunately for Megan as the play, “Little Murders” lasted a grand total of 7 performances. Megan in this becomes something beautiful that Don realizes that he can’t control that opposite of Jaguar. Eventually Ginsberg is able to put this together with a killer pitch for Jaguar, “At last, something beautiful you can truly own.” And as he said it my smile matched Don’s. It was the perfect counterpoint to what he was feeling with Megan. However he is then given the news that an agreement has been reached with Joan. Realizing they have the perfect pitch, Don rushes to Joan’s house to stop her. After their time out last week he has respect for her and doesn’t want her to do something she would regret and doesn’t want to lose her.
It is during Don’s pitch to Jaguar that we learn that Don was too late and Joan had already gone through with the date. In one of the best sequences ever on Mad Men we see Don sell an object as Joan is reduced to one. The firm ends up landing Jaguar as a client, but Don is of course less than happy because he knows what the price was. The show could have ended here and been perfect, but Mad Men hit us with one more great scene. Peggy enters, and then quits. Don tries to keep her, but all he can do is kiss her hand, realizing that no matter what he has done for her he has never and could never own Peggy and he now has one less beautiful thing in his life.
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