Plasma Pool

This essay is part of “Point-Hyperpoint: Mad Men,” a rollicking series of posts devoted to discussing AMC’s drama series. Spoilers abound. To read the entire series, please visit this page. To see all of Plasma Pool’s “Point-Hyperpoint” discussions, please click here.

Well, it is now clearer than ever that I was incredibly dumb two weeks ago when I said Mad Men was in a transitional period. It turns I just didn’t like that episode, because the last two have been two of my favorites in the show’s run. Let’s see if I can make amends.

Remember when the fourth season of The Wire started and it seemed like the big crime story was going to involve the Major Crimes Unit building a case against Marlo Stanfield? We all started coming up with complicated theories about how the season would shake out, who would find themselves in harm’s way, etc. Then they dissolved the unit for political purposes and Marlo went without surveillance for weeks.

I think Grampa Hofstadt moving in with the Drapers is Mad Men’s equivalent of that situation. In retrospect, there was no way Matthew Weiner was going to spend an entire season having Don battle wits with Gene in some dramatic version of Everybody Loves Raymond — those are the kinds of stories this show saves for Sterling Cooper. The same could be said about Darren’s point that we were all waiting for a molestation or accident or nuclear blast to take place while he was in home. But Gene never really acted like anything other than an old man losing his mind more and more everyday. I agree with everything you said; I mean, is Gene not supposed to show Bobby his old war helmets and let Sally drive cars? That’s the whole point of grandparents! When parents neglect, they go way too far in the other direction.

Of course, sometimes parents do that too, as we see in the case of the Horace Cook the Elder. Young Ho-Ho’s no-strings-attached trust fund has clearly turned him into an entrepreneurial retard, plus he seems to believe that renting ships to the government is a less impressive business venture than turning jai alai into a spectator sport (my guess is he knows nothing of the particulars of his father’s business). I imagine the Cook father-son relationship is a little more complicated than “I gave my son money and now he is a dumbhead,” but there’s no question that Ho-Ho is something of a rube because he’s been sheltered his entire life. (By the way, make sure you read until the end of this piece for some killer ideas for Patxi’s TV show!!!)

Gene makes the same claims about Sally’s upbringing, but the Drapers seem to engage in an entirely different form of parenting that involves little more than telling the kids what they are and aren’t allowed to do. The problem with Gene’s behavior towards the kids isn’t that it’s particularly out there for a grandparent (well, okay, the driving is); it’s that Sally and Bobby have been so neglected their entire lives that they have no idea how to consider Prussian helmets in the greater context of what’s right and what’s wrong.

One last thing that I think deserves more discussion: This episode was absolutely hilarious, and that’s becoming a common occurrence for Mad Men. Most great dramas eventually become totally fantastic comedies — the one revered show that didn’t was Battlestar Galactica, which I had to stop watching midway through the first season because it was so grim — and it’s a sign of Mad Men’s quality that it’s becoming so damn funny every week. Weiner certainly has experience in this area; I’d make the argument that The Sopranos was the funniest show on TV not named Arrested Development during its entire run.

Okay, now it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Patxi television show ideas!!!!!

Patxi Things Up!: Patxi plays Fernando Abrazos, a marriage counselor who only works with couples on the brink of divorce. But Patxi has been unlucky in love himself and must deal with his three ex-wives! Can he find true love again in the big city?

Legal Guardians: I said a few weeks ago that I wanted to see Gene and Glen Bishop in a spin-off. But now that Gene’s dead, our only chance would be a Touched by an Angel-type show, and I’m having none of that. So here’s the new idea: Ho-Ho’s business advisor (Clucky the Rooster as himself) reports Ho-Ho to the SEC for insider trading, but instead of hitting him with a prison sentence, the judge makes him adopt Glen Bishop, whose mother has joined the Peace Corps. Can Ho-Ho learn the value of responsibility and teach Glen not to keep miscellaneous locks of hair in a tin box? Co-starring Patxi as Ho-Ho’s wacky neighbor, a promiscuous jai alai superstar with a gambling problem.

Angels in the Fronton: Patxi is a jai alai badboy who dies during a particularly gruesome run-in with a pelota. Before he can enter heaven, though, he must play guardian angel to Ricky Velasquez, a talented youngster torn between his good Christian upbringing and the seductive world of high-stakes jai alai. Can Patxi keep Ricky on the straight and narrow?