'Mad Men' recap: Trudy can't fail

By Meredith Blake

April 15, 2013 12 AM PT

It seems to me things in Vietnam might have turned out differently for the United States if only we’d had Trudy Campbell fighting on our side. Because, as I’ve long suspected and as Pete discovered in Sunday’s “Mad Men,” hell truly hath no fury like a Trudy scorned.

Though she doesn’t get much screen time, Trudy has long been one of my favorite characters on this show. Her unique ability to be perky, gracious and utterly ruthless all at once, and to get alpha males like Don Draper to bend to her will without so much as mussing a hair is, in a word, inspiring.

And, unlike the many other unhappy housewives on “Mad Men,” Trudy is nobody’s fool. When she agreed to let her husband keep an apartment in the city at the end of last season, she knew exactly what that really meant: that Pete wanted a safe place to carry on his various affairs. So when his latest dalliance, with a neighbor named Brenda, backfires violently -- a violation of their tacit understanding -- Trudy goes ballistic.

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Trudy being Trudy, she doesn’t want a divorce. “I’m drawing a 50-mile radius around this house, and if you so much as open your fly to urinate, I will destroy you,” she warns Pete, and there is every reason to believe her.

I suppose she could be accused of hypocrisy or gold-digging or caring more about her image than her actual marriage, but the way I see it Trudy is just a pragmatist: She knew Pete was cheating all along, but as long as he kept it discreet, she was willing to accept it. It was an open marriage, of a sort, and as long as she was the one “granting permission,” as she puts it, then she could maintain a sense of dignity and self-respect.

Personally, I was thrilled to see Trudy lay down the law. By the time Brenda showed up at Pete’s gross under-stocked bachelor pad, I was dreading yet another Pete Campbell-has-an-icky-affair storyline. Why lovely young women flock to the smarmy, wooden Pete like so many flies to honey is something I will never understand. Seriously, it may be the least believable thing about this entire series. But I’m at least glad he’s not getting away with it anymore.

Trudy’s speech hints at the broader themes of loyalty, compromise, self-interest and collusion that run throughout this episode, “The Collaborators,” which, not coincidentally, is set amid the Tet Offensive in late January and early February of 1968. In that event, the Viet Cong violated the terms of a temporary cease-fire by launching surprise attacks on American targets; in the fictional world of “Mad Men,” the rules are murkier, the betrayals less explicit and the victories more pyrrhic.

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Take Don, whose New Year’s resolution to end things with Sylvia has faded as quickly as most. Not only is he still sleeping with her, but he’s now forking over pocket money once she’s blown her allowance from Arnie. It’s a small detail, but a telling one: He’s smoothing over a point of contention between husband and wife while quietly usurping Arnie’s role as provider. Talk about a sneak attack.

For most of the episode, Don refuses to feel guilt about the ongoing affair. Sylvia is more conflicted after a heart-to-heart in which Megan reveals she’s miscarried. The pregnancy wasn’t planned -- damned those marijuana cigarettes -- and so the miscarriage is something of a relief. At the same time, Megan is devastated to lose something she didn’t really know she wanted in the first place.

Her mixed emotions are perfectly understandable, which makes it even crueler when Sylvia drops a guilt trip on her. How dare she not want to go through with the pregnancy? Sylvia’s behavior can, in part, be explained by her own shock in learning that Don and Megan still lead an active sex life -- that they haven’t drifted apart, as he claimed. In her mind, the affair was justified as long as she could tell herself the Drapers were unhappy.

Don is less afflicted by guilt. When he and Sylvia wind up dining alone, he sees it as a happy accident. Her insistence on feeling bad right up until the moment when he’s taking off her dress is, Don implies, an act as dishonest as their infidelity. Why pretend to feel lousy about something that brings them both such obvious pleasure?

Don’s callousness would be more shocking were it not for the brief flashbacks to his formative years as Dick Whitman. It’s been a while since Dick and his dungarees have made an appearance on “Mad Men,” and so at first it’s jarring to have them back. But from them, we learn a bit more about the roots of Don’s chronic infidelity and the elaborate ethical contortions he makes in order to justify it. Spending your adolescence in a brothel where your pregnant stepmother is carrying on an illicit affair with her own sister’s husband is hardly a recipe for moral rectitude.

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As screwed up as Don’s sense of right and wrong may be, the unapologetic bravado withers away as soon as Megan confides in him about the miscarriage and admits to the possibility of wanting a baby. Last season she seemed resolved in her decision not to be a mother, but she certainly wouldn’t be the first woman on planet Earth to experience such a change of heart.

What’s harder to figure out is just how Don would feel about becoming a father once again, especially now that he’s fallen off the fidelity wagon. He may have married Megan because she was the anti-Betty, but that doesn’t mean history won’t repeat itself.

The questions about loyalty are especially relevant this week at the office -- or, rather, at both offices. Don technically gives Herb Rennet what he wants by suggesting Jaguar focus on local radio ads, but he intentionally fumbles the pass by throwing out dog-whistle words like “truck drivers” and “housewives” that he knows will frighten them off. It is, as Roger puts it, the “deftest self-immolation” he’s ever seen. Don conforms to the letter of the law while violating its spirit. The same goes for Raymond at Heinz, who introduces his nemesis, Timmy Ketchup (that’s his name, right?) to Don and the gang because he has to, but forbids them from actually pitching him.

Over at CGC, Peggy finds herself in a pickle when she slips up and tells Teddy that Heinz ketchup is looking for new business. It’s a surprisingly amateurish mistake by Peggy; surely we all knew Teddy was going to pounce on that opportunity as soon as he heard about it. It will be interesting to see how this effects Peggy’s relationships with Stan and Don.

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Stray thoughts:

--Unlike teenage Dick Whitman, teenage Jon Hamm seems to have bypassed that whole awkward adolescent phase. Then again, no one looks good with a Depression-era bowl cut.

--Forgive me for being obtuse here, but when Joan told Herb, “I know there’s a part of you haven’t seen for years,” was she talking about the “part” I think she was talking about? If so: ouch.

--Joan is in this episode all too briefly, but her scene ties in neatly with the themes of the week. She made an alliance of sorts with Herb in order to secure herself financially, but now she’s struggling with the fallout from that arrangement.

--I thoroughly enjoyed Peggy’s tepid pep talk (“The way... you are has nothing to do with the fact that the work ... needs work”). Elisabeth Moss is really great at these kinds of awkwardly hilarious moments (see also: her conversation with Teddy’s minister over the phone last week).

--A housekeeping note: I will be away for the next two weeks on my honeymoon and will have someone very capable filling in for me. But I’ll be back just in time for summer of 1968. Oh, boy!

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