The Definitive Guide to Next Week on Mad Men, Episode 605

 

Did you bother watching Mad Men on Sunday? Again? You poor, time-wasting fool. You could have just read my predictions from last week, and you would have saved yourself the revelation that beans, vinegars, and sauces are just as fleeting as a makeout session with a nameless hippie on a couch in a lava lamp disguised as a nightclub. Use your time more wisely this Sunday and watch the NBA playoffs, or Game of Thrones twice, or anything else. All you need to know is what I have gleaned from the popular Web Series, "Next Week on Mad Men," explained below.

Follow along with the predictive action here. 

0:01-0:03: Peggy will show up to a fancy cocktail party, probably the 1968 CLIO awards, wearing a structured pink dress. Across the room, she espies Heinz’s own Tim Jablonski, paisley ascot and spit-soaked bare finger and all. He's trying to have sex with the beans, vinegars, and sauces guy's wife just for the hell of it. This is her chance at redemption. If Heinz is talking about going with a larger ad firm, it’s time to change the conversation. The only thing more eye-catching a 50-foot billboard in Times Square is an elegant floral print made out of this:

Heinz will buy it in the room. They just have to.

0:03-0:04: Megan will exit an elevator, all dolled up for the CLIOs. Her smile will be more convincing than her portrayal of a woman who didn't totally enjoy making out with another man on screen. Don will exit the elevator  right behind her, but will pause to allow her to get just far away enough that she won't be able to hear the doors close again with him back inside.

He will press the button for floor 17.

He's already late for the orgy. There will be nice coffee in the morning.

0:04-0:05: Ginsburg will enter a darkened room and say, "I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" The camera will pan over to Matthew Weiner and a couple of writers with their faces blurred out.

"Yes," one of the writers will say. "You are interrupting a meeting where we're trying to figure out how to kill you off. None of us really understand what your character is supposed to be anymore beyond a mustache and a Jew-fro."

Matthew Weiner will take credit for saying this.

0:05-0:06: Returning to the party after an adventure in bacchanalia with Ted McGinley, Don will try one last chance to win the ketchup account from Heinz. "Heinz is as fundamentally American as the grass beneath our feet, um, green peppers, and um, algae," Don will say. "People are talking about some tomatoes and stuff but, uh, change the conversation. I think you should make green ketchup. So where's our check?"

You've still got it Don. Two minutes later, someone will remind him to zip up his pants.

0:06-0:07: With accounts dwindling by the day, staff morale low, and constant politicking over partnership at the company, Roger will decide to slip a few tabs of LSD in the SCDP whiskey fountain. "I thought it would solve the whole thing," Roger will say to several totem poles wearing suits with thin lapels and bright scarves and go-go boots.

0:08-0:10: Pete will discover that his electricity has been shut off in his Manhattan apartment, the pockets have been cut out of all of his suit pants, and his floors are covered, wall to wall, with cups full of water. Knowing that this is Trudy's retaliation for his philandering, he calls her, furious. After giving her a real piece of his mind, Pete will attempt to slam the receiver down. There is resistance coming from the side of his face.

 "I don't know why I'm so surprised," he will say into the phone glued to his ear and hands.

0:10-0:11: Pete, obviously, will decide to sleep in the office from now on.

0:11--0:13: Rumors begin swirling around Cutler, Gleason, and Chaough that a mysterious woman at the CLEOs covered herself with a viscous green substance, wrapped herself around the leg of someone holding a bottle of Heinz ketchup, and screamed, "Pick me! Pick me! I'm the one you want!"

The word finally gets around to Peggy. "Just forget about her," she will say.

0:13-0:14: While the award for the "Least Likely to Advance Within His Company" CLEO award is being announced, Pete and Joan will begin snickering. "Shhhh!" Harry Crane will abscond. No talking. It's Harry Time™.

0:14-0:15: Realizing that her green ketchup pitch is tanking, Peggy will mutter to herself, "don't do anything stupid." Then she will go into what can only be described as a "hard sell."

0:15-0:16: Back in suburbia, Henry Francis says, "Everything's fine." Ok, great. That's all we needed to hear. There is now no reason for the show to return to the Francis household. Ever.

0:16-0:21: After Don insists that he has no interest in participating in the swingers lifestyle, Megan will insist, "You can't avoid it forever," and then saunters off back to the party.

Don will hang back. He'll check his watch.

He's already late for the second orgy.

0:21-0:22: After booking a televised revue starring Yogi Berra on London's West end to promote DDT, Harry will still only be compensated with twice his annual pay and will not receive the promotion he so desperately craves. He realizes that the only way to earn a spot behind that closed conference room door is the old fashioned way: hanging out by the docks during Fleet Week and seeing what happens.

"That's disgusting," Pete will say after Harry reveals the thrill he felt after selling himself to a sailor.

"That's no way to speak to a future partner," Harry will say. Then he will slip on a banana peel and drop his ABC mug on the ground.

0:22-0:23: Sitting in a restaurant booth, Ben Feldman, the actor who portrays Ginsburg, will point to his clothes, facial hair, and perm and say, "I sure as hell didn't arrange this!"

0:23-0:25: Don, getting dressed after the third orgy of the evening, will slowly turn towards the camera and realize that one of the guests at this Caligulan affair seemed a little familiar. 

"Did Betty...dye her hair? Nah, that's gotta be the LSD talking. Roger, you scamp."

That's it! No need to watch Mad Men anymore--you're welcome!