Mad Men 3.06: Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency: Reactions, Pt. 1/2

“…that’s life…one minute you’re on top of the world; the next minute, some secretary’s running over you with a lawn mower.”

--Joan

First things first: Congrats to Mad Men on its Emmy wins last night!!! It deserved them, without a doubt.

Now, on to the reactions..

Twice. That's how many times I watched this episode because with Mad Men, one pass is never enough. Especially when an episode involves a guy getting his foot run over by a secretary driving a mower *inside* Sterling Cooper.

In short, this. episode. was. amazing. Here are some things I thought were interesting—it’s all kind of thrown together. You have been warned.

More changes seemed to loom ever closer for many in the Mad Men universe, and so did the uneasiness. One example--the crew over at Sterling Cooper being anxious about PPL’s sudden inspection of its American acquisition.

For a second there, it looked like the old order at Sterling Cooper would get phased out even more. For example, Guy MacKendrick, the charming young account master who had everything going for him (i.e. being attractive, suave, rich, intelligent, etc.), was getting set to take over. Lane Pryce, who was starting to grow on me, was on the brink of being shipped off to Bombay. Roger Sterling wasn’t even assigned a position after MacKendrick’s takeover. And Joan’s last day was going to be relegated to a non-event due to MacKendrick’s arrival. And then, I remembered…

Ken Cosgrove drove in on a John Deere at the beginning of the episode, and I thought...this can't be good...

Didn’t Chekov have a literary principle that says, ‘If a John Deere mower shows up in act 1, then someone has to drive it over someone’s foot in the next one?’

I felt really bad for MacKendrick when his foot got mangled, but, part of me was…oddly relieved that a) Bombay would not gain a snake charmer in Lane Pryce and that b) the order of the Sterling Cooper universe would not drastically change for at least one more day. I'll be honest--I mostly felt relieved about (b).

(Cont. in Pt. 2!)