In Which Pete May or May Not Get Another Chip 'N' Dip

Love The Way You Lie Glen

by ALMIE ROSE
 
Season 4 of Mad Men just started. Let the predictions begin.
 
Don will say, "What do you want me to say?" at least twice before the season's end.
 
Duck Phillips will host a swinging beach party and Annette Funicello will show up and get drunk, but this will be referred to and not shown, because Mad Men is all about the great 60s references that make old people feel young again. And young people feel old in a fresh, hip, Urban Outfitters furniture-kind-of-way.
 
Don will say, "What do you want me to think?" at least twice before the season's end.

Betty will purse her lips and say something shrewd.

Henry Francis will be followed by a horde of villagers chanting "IMHOTEP!"
 
Glen will hide in the Drapers home's basement. He will emerge only at night, to play beautiful music on the family piano. Sally Draper will be enchanted. Then in a bizarre s'mores mishap, Glen will accidentally burn the house down. Sally will get blamed.

Don will crash his car again and chuckle about it later.
 
Harry will continue to lose weight and look like Buddy Holly by the season's end.
 
Something will happen and Peggy will not be amused by it. No, sir.

Hey remember when Pete raped someone?
 
Roger will ask Joan if she'll pee on him. Joan will ponder it in a voice over using puns like, "Urine Hot Water Now" and "If MGMT thinks it's time to pretend, is it time for me to pee-tend? Or should I control myself?"
 
Several episodes will end with a sobering image of something serious while a happy 60s tune plays in juxtaposition.
 
Colin Hanks will stay on Fox.
 
Black people will continue to be mysteriously absent.

Someone will say, "We can't lose this account!" They will then lose the account.
 
We'll be treated to another Don Draper/Dick Whitman/Grapes of Wrath flashback that will tell us everything we already know; that Don had a difficult childhood, that hobos are just honest folk trying to get by, and that this show is more than stylish outfits. The next scene will feature Betty in a stylish outfit, because we've had enough doom and gloom, and the Great Depression is just yucky.
 
Sally Draper will stab someone with a pair of scissors.
 
The Draper dog will run away and/or commit suicide.

Don will want Betty even more now that she's not his wife.
 
That guy that you've seen several times before, oh God he was in that movie with that guy, and I think he was in that TV show too, and wasn't he in that indie with Mark Ruffalo? will make a cameo.
 
Someone will say earnestly, "The times are changing, Don." It will probably be Roger. He will probably be smoking and/or drinking when he says it.

Sal will show up and make a great pop culture reference and everyone will laugh except for Pete.
 
Seriously, Pete raped that au pair. Remember?

Don will arrive at a party where some girl with long straight hair is singing a song in French. He will make a face.
 
Pete will accidentally shoot himself in the foot in the middle of a meeting. Literally. Don will tell him that his actions almost cost them the big account. Pete will cry, not for his foot, but for disappointing Don.

Betty will make a simple, yet loaded statement like, "It's all so beautiful" and we will all suddenly understand what her character is really about.
 
Nothing will happen and yet everything will change.

Paul Kinsey will be arrested for public nudity. Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce will hear about it and laugh. Don will remark, "When you want ham...don't settle for turkey." Everyone will laugh but not really understand his joke. There will be an awkward silence. Pete will try to break it by saying, "I guess he should have ordered a side of hash browns." No one will understand that either. The silence will become even more awkward. Roger will say, "This is more awkward than the time I vomited everywhere." Everyone will understand that and will laugh and feel relieved. This is the precise moment when Don plots to murder Roger.
 
Someone will cry at their desk and it won’t be who we think it is! Unless it is.

Everyone will die. It will be okay though because they will all meet up in heaven and "move on" together. It will not make sense. It will come out of nowhere. Nothing will be explained.

Don and Roger will take on Playboy as an account. It will be a smashing success. They will be invited to a party at Huge Hefner's. Don will hit on a Bunny. She'll surprise him and say, "I'm sorry Mr. Draper, but I'm not that kind of girl." Don will realize that appearances are not always what they seem. He will apoologize take her to a real steak dinner and not even try to feel her up. She'll say, "Maybe there's hope for you yet, Mr. Draper" with a smile. He'll say, "Maybe there is" and cock his head and grin. Meanwhile Roger will learn the true meaning of Christmas.

Almie Rose is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She twitters here and blogs here. She last wrote in these pages about the Backstreet Boys.

"Juveniles" - The Walkmen (mp3)

"All My Great Designs" - The Walkmen (mp3)

"While I Shovel the Snow" - The Walkmen (mp3)

In Which We Arch Our Backs Like Don Draper

Where Am I And Who Is This Child?

by ELEANOR MORROW

Pregnancy is a fog. Don's busy getting breathy phone calls from his daughter's teacher, and Betty Draper tells him the keys are already in his hand.

During the birth, Don fantasizes about an imaginary friend/prison guard who makes Don witness his exortation to be a better man. Somehow this guy found the time to get Don's favorite brand of liquor and offer it to him. Later, the guy doesn't even recognize Don in the hallway.

Fine, okay. Don spends more time with his children, appears more "caring" and trustworthy. He turns down Peggy's request for a raise and denigrates Duck Philips' designs on his creative team. Duck killed his wife's dog, found work at a new agency, and time to ambush Pete Campbell. How is Don supposed to live in a world where people envy what he never desired?

January Jones models an impressive new dress and demands her doctor, not the local Jew obstetrician on call. She names her son after her crazy, lecherous father, and promises the child she'll never let him jam a fat girl's head against a spigot. The child has no choice but to take the name.

The series finale of King of the Hill aired last Sunday. The rating is likely to make Mike Judge sad. The weird thing about that show is that its characters never aged; so that no matter what happened in the world Bobby was the same chuckling child as when it began its run nine years ago.

Sally Draper and Don Draper, on the other hand, have room to grow as people. A Draper has no chance of being a human being. Like her new little brother, she'll be encumbered by her father's infidelities, and probably forbidden from driving her grandfather's car.

All the while, men continue to approach Don Draper privately. Each one mutely expresses the desire of the other. Don draws on some relevant pain in his past to sympathize since he lacks a soul — who else channels his own life's tragedy better than Don Draper? Even when he's hallucinating while his wife gives birth, he's on the clock for Sterling-Cooper. I see everything, he tells the jerkwad British CFO, you've seen my ticket stubs.

There's a backlog of work you need to approve, Sterling tells Don. He's just sitting in his office having a drink, laughing off the whole thing about Lois' scarf getting stuck in the copier. Bitch out Pete Campbell and Don Draper and you've earned your salary. Fortunately he's a few years shy of the '09 recession.

Pete's been getting the short end of the stick for awhile now. He's not benefiting from the competition with Ken Cosgrove, and he's starting to go overboard by having intense moments with service people of color. Like in The Sopranos, folks of color are used as props here for white insecurities, scapegoats for profit margins, and 3/5th of a vote. With that said, I will be taking out a full page personals ad in Ebony. I'm crossing my fingers that it will pay "big" dividends.

Dream sequences were also a meaningful part of Weiner's previous show. In Betty's dream, her father pretends not to recognize her, and then she sees her prim mother with her hand on Medgar Evers' shoulder, a signifier embedded in Betty's consciousness since her parent-teacher conference. Would you believe that Evers actually played himself in the role? Why haven't they done a Martin Luther King Jr. biopic yet? Is Spike Lee that busy warming Kobe Bryant's scrotum with his breath?

Eleanor Morrow is the senior contributor to This Recording. She tumbls here.

"Minute Till Dawn" — Ana Popovic (mp3)

"Girl of Many Worlds" — Ana Popovic (mp3)

"How Lonely Can A Woman Get" — Ana Popovic (mp3)