Watching (Mad) Men: S6 E3 Recap

Spoiler Alert: This blog is published after Mad Men airs on Showcase in Australia, Monday at 4.30pm 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: All's unfair in love, war, and advertising: cuckolding like Vietnam, work like Munich. Dealing with Jaguar's detestable Joan-pimper, Don is defiant and virtuous, Pete toadying and spineless; symbolic of these twin philanderers' adventures in neighbourly adultery. After a flirty dinner-party, the Campbells' life —which Bob “we've met before!” Benson so envies— falls down dicking-around's dark cracks; the once-cutesy Trudy turning terrifying after suffering the indignity of indiscreet indiscretion. Don sails on, a method actor for all occasions: endlessly nailing Linda Cardellini in her Bart-Simpson-sings-Betty-Everett wig; lecturing meta-soap-operatic, maid-firing, miscarrying Megan on propriety; flashing back to his Southern-Gothic-Brothel childhood. Meanwhile, across town, Peggy, empowered by Ted Chaough's turtlenecks, is in full student-becomes-the-master mode: all terrified nerdlinger underlings, Dawn-alike secretary, and account-stealing chicanery. Stan sparks another spliff, beard bristling.

How Big Is Thy Weiner: “You want to feel shitty, right up until the point I take your dress off,” Don intones, in a seductive seduction scene punched full of operatic-pitch flashforwards.

Pete Campbell is feeling more remote than usual

Arcane & Able: Pete points the clicker at a flickering wooden-box TV, rainbowing in and out of black-haired Johnny Carson.

Pete Campbell's Punchable-Weasel-Face Watch: Counselling a victim of domestic abuse, PC snarls, accusingly, “what did you say to him?”

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