‘Mad Men’ season 6, episode 10 review: Joan makes her big move

There have been an enormous amount of complaints about “Mad Men” season 6, mainly that the focus is too much on Don Draper and some of the other supporting characters that have had bigger storylines in the past are getting buried this year.  With this week’s episode the network has taken a bit of the focus off of Don and has given the spot light to Joan.

When Joan first got a partnership in SCDP we knew she wanted to have a vocal role in how the company operates, and although she has worked in advertising for years, she hasn’t actually been part of the wheeling and dealing. On this week’s episode Joan found herself turning a date with the head of Avon into a business meeting, but with Don and Roger out of town she ended up turning to Peggy for help for what to do next.  As Ted was rushing out of town himself he put Pete Campbell as the lead on Avon to help land them for the agency. Pete tried to sandbag Joan by not even including her in on the lunch with Avon and basically relegating her back to the person that shows their clients around the office. In attempt to take some sort of control Joan decides to book the lunch with Avon with only her and Peggy, but things become mostly awkward and the charisma that is usually present at these lunches is missing.

After the Avon lunch, Peggy and Joan have it out at the office where Peggy tells her that she shouldn’t expect to just jump into a role that she has never been in before, and from there things got ugly. Joan accused Peggy of letting her be carried by Don and Peggy brought up Joan sleeping her way into a partnership. Although Joan thought she botched the lunch with Avon, it turns out that they felt differently and sent over a thank you note which Pete found.  He confronts Joan about taking the meeting and ditching him and after being scolded by Pete and Ted (which we don’t really understand considering that Joan is a partner) she prays that Avon actually comes through for her.

For those of you that love Don, he took off with Roger to Los Angeles where he ended up almost drowning in a pool after getting high and having an imaginary talk with Megan.  The conversation with Megan in his mind showed us what Don really wants out of his marriage, a completely submissive wife that doesn’t work, lets him cheat and has his children – basically another version of what he had with Betty. Will he get that?  It still remains to be seen, but when he got back from his trip he called Megan right away.

What did you think of this week’s episode of “Mad Men” season 6? Were you happy to see some of the supporting character’s coming back into the spotlight?  Leave us a comment and tell us what you think.

Photo: AMC