The episode begins with Pete sitting
in a driver’s education class held in a high school classroom, where the other
students are actual high school students. Pete is attracted to a high school
girl who seems to view him as an old man, although she is polite and willing to
talk to him. That night, Pete can’t sleep because of a faucet dripping in the
kitchen, and he visualizes the girl as if he wants to be with her. He gets up, tries
to fix the faucet, and manages to get the dripping to stop.
At Lane’s home, after he and his wife argue about whether to
go out, they go out to a British pub where Lane pretends to have a good time.
It turns out that one of the people they meet at dinner is a VP at Jaguar, and
Lane becomes convinced that he can bring in business for SCDP. Roger tries to coach Lane on how to develop the
relationship to land the business, but Lane fails to engage the VP in
conversation during their dinner, and the SCDP execs step in to meet the VP
themselves. At this point the VP wants to “have fun” with the SCDP execs, and
they take him to a nearby house of prostitution. Don waits while the Jaguar VP
and Pete, Lane, and Roger all get with women. Later the excursion is revealed
when Lane’s hysterical wife finds out from the Jaguar customer’s wife. Pete, believing
that visiting a prostitute is part of his job, feels sanctimonious toward Don
and shows contempt for Don’s refusal to participate. Referring to Don’s advice
to hold onto his relationship with Trudy, Pete says, sarcastically, “I have it
all.” Then, noting Don’s marital satisfaction with Megan, he warns, “Wait until
the honeymoon’s over.”
Meanwhile, Peggy is at a sandwich shop and sees Ken walk by
with a man. Peggy wants to meet Ken’s friend but Ken wants privacy. Peggy
confronts Ken later at the office, and Ken explains that the man he met for
lunch was in the literary business and Ken was a short story writer under the
alias, Ben Hargrove. Back at Pete’s house, Pete and Trudy host a dinner party for Don and Megan, with Ken and Cynthia
also in attendance. The evening includes polite but strained banter, Cynthia
telling everyone about Ken’s secret second career as a writer, and the leaking
kitchen faucet bursting open. To everyone’s amazement, Don takes off his shirt
and fixes the plumbing, and Pete feels upstaged. After insulting Don and Lane,
Pete is challenged by Lane to a fist fight in the conference room. Roger, Don,
and Cooper all watch, and Joan and Peggy listen from the next room. Lane wins
the battle but goes off to his office to recover from the blows he took. Joan
enters, and when she offers sympathetic words, Lane kisses her. Joan accepts the kiss
without protest, but opens the door to stop any further advances.
The episode ends with Pete (after the fight) getting on the
elevator with Don, saying “This is an office. We’re supposed to be friends.” Then
he confesses, “I have nothing, Don.” We also see Ken continuing to write short
stories, now under a new pseudonym, and Pete sitting in his driver’s education
class watching the girl he wanted making out with a boy her own age.
A major theme of this
episode is awkward interactions caused by
the blurring of personal and professional life.
·
Ken gets it right, keeping his short story
writing career a secret from his professional associates at SCDP. He feels
awkward when Cynthia tells the dinner party about Ken’s writing, and when he is
forced to tell Peggy about his writing career on the side, but he manages to
continue his pursuit of writing by changing his pseudonym.
·
Ken has an awkward encounter with Peggy at the
sandwich shop, and later has to reveal his second career in order to save his professional
relationship with Peggy, thus bringing her slightly closer to his personal
life. However, he continues to put up reasonable barriers to keep Peggy away
from that side of himself.
·
Pete gets it wrong by thinking “we’re supposed
to be friends” when they are not friends but work associates. He and Trudy try
to mix business with pleasure by having a dinner party and inviting Don and Ken
and their spouses, leading to awkward dinner table conversation mostly carried
out by the women. Pete is so unable to draw a boundary between the personal and
the professional that he later visits a prostitute, jeopardizing his marriage,
for “business purposes.” He also tries to turn his student role (not a
professional role, but not a personal one, either) in the driver’s education
class into a personal relationship with a teenage girl, making her feel awkward.
Yet the one relationship where Pete manages to bridge the personal and
professional realms is with Don, who, despite Pete’s negativity, tries to give
him personal advice for his own good and to whom Pete confides, as a friend, “I
have nothing, Don.”
·
Lane gets it wrong by interpreting a social
encounter with a Jaguar executive as a business opportunity in which he sees
himself taking a professional leap to account executive. This leads to an
awkward social encounter where Lane cannot get the conversation rolling.
·
Lane, misinterprets Joan’s sympathetic words
after his fight as deeper personal interest, kisses her, which proves to be
very awkward.
·
At the Board meeting, Pete expresses personal
jealousy toward Lane for potentially bringing in the Jaguar account, allowing
his personal feelings to overcome his usual veneer of professionalism. This
leads to awkward feelings for Pete as the Board defends the business potential
of representing a car company.
·
Megan and Trudy conspire to trick Don into
agreeing to attend Pete and Trudy’s dinner party, creating awkwardness for Don
as he tries to get out of it. He realizes that, because of his professional
connection to Pete, he will not be able to get out of this social event and so
awkwardly accepts the invitation.
·
Roger oversteps his professional role by trying
to control Ken’s personal life, calling Ken into his office and telling him not
to moonlight as a writer anymore. Ken knows his rights, and so he ostensibly
agrees with Roger, but then secretly changes his pseudonym so that he can continue
writing on the side without getting caught.
·
The fist fight at the office between Lane and
Pete is a complete breakdown of professionalism for both of them. The men in
attendance seem to enjoy the show, but the rest of the office workers seem to
feel awkward about it, including Joan and Peggy. Afterwards Lane questions his professional
role at SCDP, and Pete feels beaten up and rejected both personally and
professionally.
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