Mad Men: Season 6, Episode 11 – Favors Review and Synopsis

Sterling Cooper and Partners has won the Sunkist account and Peggy has won her independence, albeit with rats as roommates rather than Abe although I’m sure both contribute similarly. Pete Campbell’s mom has a moment of dementia with Peggy, mistaking her for Trudy and touching off an emotional moment when she references ‘the child they have together.’ She then reveals that she has waited all her life to find someone to love her like Manolo does, so…wow. This one is already on the tracks to crazy town.

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Arnold Rosen’s son is in Megan and Don’s apartment when Don returns home and we find out the kid’s trying to dodge the draft.

mad-men-season-6-peggyPeggy, Pete, and Ted Chaough are out to a business dinner when Peggy reveals what Pete’s mother told her about the ‘fire in her loins’ brought on by Manolo’s spa treatments. Yeah, that was awkward.

Dr. Rosen doesn’t think he can prevent his son being sent to Vietnam.

The war is wrong.

Don Draper

Back at home Ted and his marriage don’t seem to be going so smoothly – his wife complaining that he is obsessed with work and also insinuating that he likes being around Peggy.

Showing how willing he is to get back in contact with Sylvia Rosen, Don asks Pete if his friend from the Department of Defense (you’ll remember, the one who revealed that Don Draper isn’t actually Don Draper to Pete way back when) still works there but, alas, he does not so Don will have to find another way out of the draft for the Rosens’ son.

Sally meets Dr. Rosen’s son in the entryway of their building and Sylvia is less than friendly with them. After attempting to confront his mother about Manolo, Pete is then told that he was a sour child and is an unlovable little man. While always cruel, perhaps his mother has hit the nail on the head this time.

mad-men-season-6-11-gm-meetingWhile at dinner with Chevy, Don attempts to get someone at General Motors to help with the Rosens’ situation. Don really doesn’t respect boundaries between work and personal life, nor truth and fantasy, for that matter. His ability to conveniently lie whenever it suits him or when he needs it is just one of his trademarks, but also one of his most terrifying.

Peggy mortally wounded a rat in her apartment, bleeding all over the place and dying. She calls Stan and even offers to make it ‘worth his while’ if he comes over to take care of the dying rat. Stan can’t oblige, because he’s already got a house guest in his bed.

Ted then confronts Don about how he basically asked GM for help with the Rosens’ son. He offers to help Don if Don will stop being a prick, which we know won’t happen.

This is not a handshake of gratitude. This is a binding contract.

Ted Chaough

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mad-men-season-6-episode-11-pete-manoloBob tells Pete that Manolo ‘doesn’t exactly turn that way’ when Pete scolds Bob for suggesting Manolo as a helper for Pete’s mother. Then Bob sort of comes on to Pete in a subtle way, which is more shocking not for the revelation that Bob is gay but rather that he would be attracted to Pete of all people. With his classic, petulant look of disgust on his face, Pete tells Bob it is disgusting and that Manolo is fired, the double meanings abounding there.

mad-men-season-6-11-rosensSally returns to the apartment and, wow, isn’t that a decision she will come to regret. After catching Don being himself with Mrs. Rosen, Sally flees the scene and leaves Don to come to grips with the fact that one of his children knows how slimy he is now. When Arnold and his son Mitchell come over to thank Don for saving him from the draft, Sally can’t contain herself anymore and has to leave the table after telling her father he is disgusting. Treating her like a stupid child, Don then tries to lie his way out of it and tell Sally what she actually saw which just brings us back around to Don Draper’s mystical world where he can will reality into being and change facts of history just by speaking.

[AMC]