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Mad Men/Recap/S4/E12 Blowing Smoke


"Great, Don saved the company. Now let's get rid of half of it."

Don has a meeting with Heinz' vinegar and beans representative (a lead he got from Faye in Chinese Wall) who is open to ideas but afraid that Don's agency won't be around much longer.

Dr. Atherton sets the agency up with Phillip Morris, who's developing a new brand of cigarettes[1]. Since SCDP has a longstanding history with tobacco, it's seen to be their best bet. As it turns out, Phillip Morris was just using them as leverage to get a better deal with Leo Burnett.

Don runs into Midge, who is now married. Sadly they are both junkies, and she was looking for him to buy one of her paintings. When he asks her why she doesn't quit, she says it's heroin and she just can't stop. He buys a painting and, on the verge of discarding it, he's inspired. After consulting no one, he takes out a full page ad in the New York Times turning the agency's failure into a principled stance against the tobacco industry. The staff is impressed, the partners are horrified, Cooper quits, and Ted Chaough is thrilled.

But Don insists that doing anything was better than nothing. Nobody's talking about Lucky Strike anymore. And what do you know, they're being asked to do a campaign against smoking. It's pro-bono, but it's a start.

To keep the company afloat, the partners have to put up a huge amount of collateral ($400,000, in the neighborhood of $3 million today) for a loan. Pete doesn't have that kind of money, and when he applies for a loan himself, Trudy think's he's looking for a house in the suburbs. When he explains himself, she forbids him from giving them anything. This mysteriously turns out not to be a problem, as Lane reveals that Don paid for him as payback for keeping is identity safe.

But they're not out of the woods yet.

This episode contains examples of:

Peggy: If this was a dog food, we'd change our name.

Danny: Is he going to quit smoking?

Harry: They're gonna fire everybody. Or worse, make me fire everybody.
Cooper: It's been a pleasure working with you all, I wish you the best of luck.
Stan: I didn't think they'd start with him.

  • Fridge Horror: Pete says Central Park was good enough for him growing up. Now imagine a teenaged girl running around Upper Manhattan in the late '70s-early '80s.
  1. ↑ Though not mentioned by name onscreen, he's referring to Virginia Slims
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