TV Review: Mad Men 3.5 – The Fog

Posted by Josh Radde (josh@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 15, 2009

Mad Men Airs Sundays at 10/9c on AMC

Synopsis: Betty has the baby; Duck Philips propositions Pete and Peggy for a job; Sally causes trouble in the classroom.

Review: I don’t know really how I felt about this episode. Betty and Don essentially going through the motions of a birth was interesting; it had a very been-there-done-that feel to it that seemed more realistic than most movie or TV show births. Betty was unhappy and spent most of this episode in a drugged up state, or a “fog,” and Don stayed in the waiting room getting drunk with a first-time father. Those scenes in the waiting room were interesting, with Don’s nonchalance countering the prison guard/new Dad’s nonstop fretting. “Fear is in anticipation” — and the same thing can be said for this episode.

I for one thought that something was going to happen to the baby or to Betty. From the nurse remarking that eating pineapple was a silly thing to do to Betty’s drug dreams involving a lot of blood and her deceased mother cleaning a bleeding black man. But with Mad Men being so consistently well-written, I should’ve known that they were just throwing the audience a curveball, like they do so often. That being said, I think there was a baby death, that of the prison guard’s baby, which is why I can only assume he couldn’t make eye contact with Don (and why his wife was in the wheelchair without a baby).

Duck is back to throw some wood on the fire — as Michael Jordan would say — adding some much needed conflict to the episode. He tells Pete and Peggy that he knows about their secret relationship, and strangely neither denies it. Yet Duck underestimates the way they go about showing feelings for each other, as Pete strands Peggy with Duck at lunch. Speaking of Pete, it was nice to see that scene in the elevator between he and Hollis. At first terribly, terribly awkward and then sort of charming. Classic Pete Campbell.

Overall, I’d say its the weakest storyline we’ve had this season. They introduced new baby Eugene (which will irritate Don I’m sure) and Sally’s teacher who couldn’t help herself from drunkenly calling Don and getting a little too intimate. But seeing as how this show throws us curveballs, I bet nothing except for a little temptation comes from that relationship.

Then again, maybe that’s what Matt Weiner WANTS me to think.

Read More: Mad Men Recaps

Read more articles by Josh Radde