mad men season 3 episode 4

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Mad Men Season 3 Episode 2 Love Among The Ruins contains several threads of story, one taking place at the office, several taking place outside of the office. There are continuing hints of real world events as spring 1963 grinds on.

Spoilers follow.

First, at the office, the firm is having some troubles with a developers who are planning to build the arena that will become Madison Square Gardens. Unfortunately this means tearing down an old railroad station, Penn Central, and preservationists, led by a New York Times columnist, are just fit to be tied. These even include the bearded guy in creative. He was the one with the black girl friend who liked to take his vacation down South to get beat up on by the Klan. In any case the contractor wants the firm to devise a campaign to counter the campaign being waged to stop them

Finally, Don Draper, with his marvelous skill of cutting through the BS, puts it to the clients. Can the building of Madison Square Gardens be stopped? No. Very well, then. Change is coming whether we whine about it or embrace it, so the campaign will be to embrace change.

Unfortunately the firm's new British masters decide to drop the client as being too expensive to service, even though Don Draper informs them that, what, with sporting events and concerts, Madison Square Gardens could be a money machine for the next thirty years.

Don Draper has another problem at home. This is the question of what to do with Betty's dad. Betty's dad, after the stroke, is not right in the head. At one point, thinking that Prohibition is still on, Daddy is found emptying the contents of Don's liquor locker down the sink. Betty's brother wants to put him in a home so he can grab the ancestral house.

Don solves the problem by informing his brother in law that Daddy will live with Don and Betty. The ancestral house will be untouched. Brother in law will contribute financially. End of discussion.

Meanwhile Roger is planning his daughter's wedding with daughter, fiancée, and wife number one. Plots are being hatched to keep Daddy away from the wedding so he won't bring much younger wife number two. This may be moot, as the date is set for November 23rd, 1063.

Finally, Peggy is bored and discontented. Why else would she be hanging around in bars and picking up strange men for one night stands. While that's the sort of thing that became normal for some people ten years later, for 1963 was rather daring and, in some ways, dangerous.

Source: Mad Men: Love Among the Ruins, TV.Com