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Tonight's adventure: "The Fog"

The Drapers are summoned to Sally's school for a conference with her teacher, the woodland sprite last seen orbiting a Maypole in episode 2. She thanks both parents for making it to the meeting, unaware that Don's job is essentially the maintenance of his office wet bar and planning just such an escape. Apparently Sally got into a vicious brawl at the water fountain with a 'bruiser' named Becky Pearson. Has anything changed at home? Betty explains that her father (not Sally's grandfather, mind) recently passed away. Between that and the wretched parasite biding its time in her womb, things have been very stressful for Betty and some of this strife may have trickled down to Sally, making her life somewhat difficult. The teacher sympathetic. Creepily so. Perhaps it's the pervasive level of detachment we've grown accustomed to in the series, but to see someone with genuine concern was alarming. Betty excuses herself to use the restroom. Don remains seated, possibly because he's trapped in an elementary school desk. The teacher alludes to the fact that she, too, experienced a death at a young age. Don said he could relate. If Betty hadn't returned so quickly we might have gotten another mention of his father's death at the hooves of a horse. 

Don returns to the office where Lane has assembled a meeting about finances. Someone's finally noticed that the expenses racked up during all these trips and martini lunches are cartoonishly high. Bored, Don gets up and leaves without a word. 

In a meeting with Paul, Pete discovers that Admiral brand television sets are selling markedly better within the black demographic. Paul doesn't care about black or white. His favorite color is red. Because, if you haven't heard, he's like a huge communist. Rumors are confirmed. Paul's secretary, the artist formerly known as Switchboard Lois, became entangled in the copy machine. Ken offers Paul Mets tickets, and the two depart for the game. 

Lane confronts Don about his abrupt departure from the finance meeting. Don explains that the Sterling Cooper difference, at least in terms of creative, is that they allow their people to do nothing all day until genius suddenly strikes. It is one of the strongest arguments for laziness and procrastination I've heard, and I'm looking to embroider the whole thing on pillows. 

Pete is alerted to a call from his "Uncle Herman." Pete is relieved and then annoyed to learn that it's actually the nefarious Duck Phillips on the line. Duck is "at Gray now" and he wants to talk to Pete about poaching him. Pete is disgusted. It should be noted that, while Duck is shown in an office and Pete takes him at his word, there is nothing to say that Duck isn't simply at home, engaged in a grand scale delusion, taking fake phone calls, mailing expense reports addressed to the Tooth Fairy and eating dandelions. 

Don arrives home to a ringing phone. No secretary in sight, he is forced to answer it himself. Sally's teacher Suzanne had drunk dialed him. She calls to explain that she's embarrassed about going overboard at the meeting. Her father died when she was eight, so she knows what Sally's going through. Don smiles, knowing he can and will be having sex with her at his convenience. They hang up and he continues his search for family members. Betty informs him that the children are with Francine, and she's ready to go to the hospital. She is tired of being pregnant. Let's go. Oh, the phone? It was nobody.  

Don helps Betty into a wheelchair and gives her a hearty pat on the back. Go get 'em, Sport. A scruffy old nurse directs him to the solarium and wheels Betty off down the corridor. Betty looks back and Don is gone in an instant. She mistakes a janitor for her father. As the nurse fills out her paperwork Betty explains that her water never breaks. Of course it doesn't.

Don kills time in the solarium with a prison guard awaiting the birth of his first child. Nurse Yeardley Smith enters to announce that the baby is coming in breach and that they need his blessing to proceed. The man gives the okay and pulls out a bottle. Don eagerly volunteers to be his drinking buddy, having never thought to bring booze to one of these things. He consoles the man with stories of his own children, lamenting that he doesn't toss around the ball with Bobby nearly enough. He then rips an automotive ad out of a magazine (the first piece of his long-delayed man-cave)? 

Betty prepares for labor. The nurse promises that the shave and enema are coming right up. Later, she goes Linda Blair in the delivery room, throttling her nurses and demanding that Don and her real doctor get their asses in there immediately. She soon drifts off under the anesthesia, dreaming that she's walking down a perfect suburban sidewalk. She holds a green caterpillar in the palm of her hand. Out int he solarium, Don and his friend jostle some cigarettes from a vending machine. The guy is rattled, so Don assures him, promising that "our worst fears lie in anticipation." Later, when the nurse returns to tell the man that his wife and child are mostly okay. He's overjoyed, and with God and Don as his witnesses, he vows to be a better man. Back in Betty's drug-induced haze she dreams again of her father. This time she encounters him in her kitchen at home, mopping the floor with blood. He teases her, and when she asks if she's dying, he directs her to her mother. The woman stands by the window, a black man seated before her. She's scary. Gene explains to Betty that she's a house cat with little to do. We learn next to nothing about the Dharma initiative. 

Betty stirs from her sleep, a baby in her arms. Don takes a seat at her feet. It's a baby boy. Betty wants to call him Gene. Don says "We don't have to decide that now." Betty is resolute. The baby will be named Eugene and he will suffer vicious taunting on the schoolyard. 

Don returns to the office, which has turned to bedlam in his absence. His office is filled with baby booties and pacifiers and the art department has no idea what to do with themselves. "I've only been gone half a day!" 

Pete arrives for his lunch with Duck Phillips, startled to find Peggy already nestled into the booth. Duck wants both of them for his (totally fake, fictional, made up) agency. He knows they work well together. Pete wants nothing to do with Duck or the duplicity that such a meeting entails, so he leaves in a huff. Peggy wonders if the offer is still available without Pete in the picture. Duck assures her that working with his agency would mean more creative freedom. "It's your time."  

Pete accosts the black elevator operator about his choice in television sets. Pete is trying to figure out this whole negro demographic thing, but his enthusiasm and curiosity come across as an interrogation. The tension breaks when Pete brings up baseball. Everyone loves baseball. White people. Black people. Even pinkos like Kinsey. 

In a scene oddly reminiscent of a Michael Jackson tabloid highlight, Don and the kids wave from the street as Betty approaches the window with baby Gene. Maybe this is unfounded, by I was relieved whenever Betty offered the child to anyone else. 

Don and Sally share a late night snack in the kitchen. Sally drops some egg knowledge and Don explains that it was never really Grandpa Gene's room. It was always Baby Gene's room. Everything is going to be fine, just wait and see. 

Don carries a bouquet of flowers on his way to visit Betty. There's something not quite right about the prison guard wheeling his wife down the hall. Maybe Don's assurances weren't quite right. 

Paul and Pete meet with Admiral and suggest that they capitalize on their success in black markets and advertise their televisions in negro periodicals like JET and Ebony. The Admiral execs are well aware of this phenomenon, but are uncomfortable with the idea of catering to it. Pete is later chewed out by Bert and Roger for provoking what Bert calls "a sensitive issue." Lane offers that there may be some merit in focusing on the growing black demographic, but with other companies, no Admiral. 

Peggy walks in on a napping Don. She offers him her own congratulatory gift (the guys didn't let her in on their group offering). She hesitates and then tells Don that she's frustrated with her pay level, referencing an article she read in the paper about equal pay for women. Don dismisses her wishes, using Lane's recent expenditure complaints as an excuse. Peggy suggests implies that Sterling Cooper may not be the best fit for her. Don seems sympathetic, but unable to do anything about her situation. As she exits, Pete confronts her, demanding to know whether she's sold them out for their meeting with Duck. Peggy says it's none of his business. Pete snarls. "Your decisions affect me (you know, like that time you decided to put up my kid for adoption)."

Betty and Don bring baby Gene home. Francine fawns over the child and Betty names the episode, describing the haze of childbirth. That night, Betty rises to the sound of her crying child. She stumbles down the hall, pausing for a moment in the moonlight, before entering the nursery to tend to him. 

While I found the extended dream sequences a bit grating, I was pleased to see another element of period advertising turmoil, namely the Admiral television subplot. I love the series' soap opera elements, but those guilty pleasures are earned with moments of real history. This season we're getting a lot of that, especially in terms of transition. Last week Sal was concerned about the death of illustration and the growth of photography. We're constantly hearing about the advent of television as a marketing tool. This week we got to hear more about the shift in demographics, with conservative white industries unable to ignore the fact that white people aren't the only kind of people. And those other people are buying things. Peggy also introduces the concept of equal pay. Chapter headings in history, but how do they translate to the workplace? It's in these little board room meetings where the series gets to ask its most compelling questions. 

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