Watching (Mad) Men: S6 E8 Recap

Spoiler Alert: This blog is published after Mad Men airs on Showcase in Australia, Monday at 5.15pm EST. Do not read on unless you have watched this week's episode which is also available for download Tuesday mornings on iTunes.

This Week On Mad Men: If TV's best drama is normally a downer, here's SCDPCGC's “whorehouse” on uppers: a quack shooting up half the staff with a “mild stimulant” that speeds the episode into a delirious, disorienting, on-deadline! freak-out that mines Frank Gleason's swift demise for demented laughs. Dumped Don, feeling “a lot of emotions” and “the darkness”, is beset by cherry-popped Southern-Gothic-brothel-boyhood flashbacks, and takes to the Chevy campaign like Barton Fink to a wrestling picture. Stoned Stan sets his eyes, at long last, on Peggy's “great-ass”. And, in one of Mad Men's greatest moments, Ken rages out his Chevvy angst whilst tapdancing a blur, like some six-foot Alan Ladd channeling a meth'd-out Fred Astaire. Meanwhile, Sexual-Awakening Sally, left in charge at the Draper-Calverts' plush Park Ave. pad, lets in a silver-tongued shyster who steals the silverware amidst sustained Rosemary's Baby homage.

We're not on uppers, we always move around the office like this.

How Big Is Thy Weiner?: An in-medias-res shock opening with Ken, a gun, and a car-crash sets the tone for an episode of jarring jump-cuts. It's bookended by an ending elevator descent in tense, stone-cold silence.

Pete Campbell's Punchable-Weasel-Face Watch: In his solitary scene: “that's in poor taste!”; delivered with a lemon-sucking face of panto outrage. Vincent Kartheiser is the greatest.

Screening every Monday night, 5.20pm and 8.30pm, on Showcase