Mad Men Recap of Man with a Plan: Commotion takes over the office of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce with the arrival of the employees from Cutler, Gleason, and Chaough. Notwithstanding the changes, the merger begins propitiously with Bert Cooper’s plan to receive the new partners with a speech congratulating them for their recent victory at the Clio Awards for the “Little Headaches” commercial they created for St. Joseph’s Children’s Aspirin. Pete Campbell arrives late for the partners’ meeting and finds that there are no available seats. Moira, Ted Chaough’s secretary, offers her seat prompting the good-natured Ted to offer his seat to her. The meeting continues with the announcement of potential new business with Fleischmann’s Margarine, but discord immediately follows when Pete brings up an issue with the New York State Thruway. His client, Henry Lammott of Mohawk Airlines, believes that a conflict of interest exists in an agency serving both car and air travel clients. Pete expects CGC to resign the New York State Thruway account, which Ted does not contest seeing that Mohawk Airlines outweighs New York State. Regrettably, Jim Cutler rejects the request, because they have already spent the two hundred fifty thousand media budget from New York State Thruway. The breakdown in communication leads to a heightened argument about other pieces of information both agencies kept from each other including Frank Gleason’s serious illness. Don offers to settle the issue with Mohawk Airlines accompanied by Ted who happens to be a pilot.Continue reading...
An urgent phone call for Pete takes him away from the meeting. Dorothy Dyckman, his demented mother, has arrived in his Manhattan apartment demanding to see her deceased husband. Meanwhile, Don receives a phone call from Sylvia demanding that he come to her immediately. She is unaware that Don overheard the argument she had with her husband and is nescient of his fear that Arnold had learned of their affair. Aware that Arnold remains ignorant of the affair, he tells her to meet him at the Sherry-Netherland at half past noon. Don leaves the office to be with Sylvia, while his team including Peggy Olson and Ted Chaough wait for him. Unable to track him down, Ted takes charge of the meeting and allows the creatives to free-associate on Fleischmann’s Margarine eliciting good starting points for their campaign. Meanwhile, Don ends his rendezvous with Sylvia and demands that she not whine about her husband to him. Moreover, he asserts his authority over her by ordering her to bring his shoes to him as a servant does to her master. Don then commands that she undress, return to bed, and remain there until his return. He returns to the office and arrives at the meeting almost an hour late. Ted dismisses the team and confronts Don about his tardiness and disrespect for everyone who expected his presence at the meeting. Don’s only retort is to slam the door at Ted. He then calls Sylvia to instruct her to continue waiting for him despite not knowing the time of his return. Moreover, she is not to answer the phone again. Sylvia obeys his every demand for she found his disrespectful assertion of authority over her arousing. Satisfied with his lover’s obedience, Don offers an olive branch to Ted in the form of alcohol. He believes that they have better luck coming up with the campaign for Fleishchmann’s Margarine if they discussed it without the rest of the team. Ted gets drunk after several drinks leaving Don to come up with the idea of a farmer’s wife putting margarine on a pancake that comes with a delicious breakfast spread, which Ted insists should include bacon. A heavily inebriated Ted meets with the team for a senseless survey then falls asleep. Don has tricked Ted into embarrassing himself to the team in order to regain his authority over them. After hours of waiting, Sylvia hears a knock on the door and finds on the doorstep a box from Saks Fifth Avenue containing a red dress. Don finally arrives at the hotel where Sylvia in the red dress waited for him for three hours. Sylvia believing that the dress was meant for a nice dinner out in the town becomes frightened after Don tells her that they are to stay in the hotel for she exists solely for his pleasure. She acquiesces to Don’s order to undress. Curiously, Sylvia looks forward to playing Don’s bizarre game despite his cruelty. Later, Don returns to his wife who is fast asleep and clueless of his affair, while Ted pays Frank a visit at the hospital. Ted confides to him the incident with Don and about the man’s curious interest in him. He finds Don mysterious, reticent, but eloquent. Frank advises Ted to let Don win the first few battles without losing confidence, because Don will eventually tire himself.
Pete arrives at his Manhattan apartment and finds his brother, Bud, waiting for him anxious to hand off their mother. He pleads Bud to take his mother home with him, unable to deal with a family problem whilst in the middle of a tumultuous merger. Aside from Pete’s betrayal for enlisting another financial services firm to underwrite Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s public offering, Bud believes that it is high time for his younger brother to care for their mother as he and his wife have done in the past. Moreover, Bud’s wife, Judy, has lost her patience with her mother-in-law. The following morning, Dorothy regains some of her lucidity enough to deduce that her son’s marriage is at a precipice. Pete eludes his mother’s observation and arrives at the office to confide his concerns to Harry Crane. He has come to believe that the merger will lead to his eventual dismissal. Another emergency at home disrupts his confidence and causes Ted and Don to see Henry Lammott without him. Ted and Don fly to Mohawk Airline’s headquarters in Ted’s small airplane in the middle of heavy rain allowing Ted to witness a frightened Don Draper. Moreover, flying his own plane to see the owner of an airline company gains him the upper hand for it certainly will impress the client. Pete arrives at the office to learn that the two creative directors went to see the client without him. To add to his insecurity, the meeting was successful in spite of his absence. Don, on the other hand, returns to the hotel only to learn that Sylvia has come to her senses. Sylvia has come to realize of the immorality of their affair and the shame she brought to herself for engaging in it. Don begs Sylvia to reconsider and ends up submitting to her decision. The lovers return to their families.
Roger Sterling summons smug Burt Peterson to his office to terminate him once again. Burt has deluded himself into believing his indispensable role in the agency only to learn that none of the partners at CGC fought to keep him. He threatens Roger of taking his clients with him, a clear delusion knowing that Chevy, his biggest account has already welcomed Ken Cosgrove as his replacement. This is ominous news for Bob Benson, who was to report to Burt. Bob accidentally finds a severely sick Joan Holloway at her office after mishearing her request to wait. A disheveled Joan reluctantly agrees to leave her office to go to the hospital. Bob stays with her at the waiting room and persuades the babysitter to stay with Joan’s son until she or her mother arrives. Moreover, he manages to inveigle the nurse into providing Joan immediate care after concocting a story of her accidental consumption of furniture polisher. As it turns out, Joan has a cyst in her ovary, one she naively does not find concerning. Bob pays Joan a visit seemingly anxious to learn of her recovery and wins the approval of her mother. Joan, however, suspects his kindness as insurance given the recent dismissals following the merger. Nonetheless, she fights to keep him employed with an argument of his involvement in Ken’s accounts, which would require his management while Ken attends to the needs of Chevrolet in Detroit. Jim agrees to let go of a CGC account manager instead pleasing Pete. Later, Pete’s mother wakes him in the middle of the night to inform him that Kennedy has been shot. He dismisses his mother mistaking her information as another one of her delusions unaware that she was referring to the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
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