Mad Men
Season 7 Episode 11 “Time & Life”
Directed by Jared Harris
Written and created by Matthew Weiner
Starring Jon Hamm, Elizabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, January Jones, Vincent Kartheiser, John Slattery, Rich Sommer, Aaron Staton, Kiernan Shipka, Kevin Rahm
AMC
Air Date: Sunday, April 26th, 2015, 10pm

Mad Men 7.11 “Time & Life” review is coming right up. First, Let’s recap last week’s episode.

Don (Jon Hamm) has to sell his place, but it’s not like selling product in advertising. His realtor is frustrated because it’s so empty and sad. He had a bunch of small sad moments in this episode – Peggy (Elizabeth Moss) yells at him, he fires Mathis (Trevor Einhorn) because he blew it with a client and then insulted Don for it, and then the last shot in the hallway outside of his apartment – depressing.

Joan (Christina Hendricks) meets someone in California who is so not interested in dating someone with kids, having been there, done that. Not really a problem since they are across the country, so she lies about her son. He shows up in NY. She tells the truth and he doesn’t want it. But then he does.

Glen Bishop from the Ossining neighborhood is all grown up and still in love with Betty (January Jones). He’s joining the army and shipping off to Vietnam, and he tries to kiss Betty. She pushes him away gently. She does let him touch her face and gives him encouraging words.

Sally (Kiernan Shipka) is going on a teen tour, but leaves angry at her parents for the way they react to people looking at them.

Mad Men 7.11 “Time & Life” review: Goddamn, I love this show. It’s not scary. It’s not bloody. It’s about advertising. So the acting and the writing and the subtlety in the sets and the music have to be everything. It all has to be so much better than other shows. And it is. I just watched an episode about a large company swallowing up a smaller company, not really riveting subject material. If somebody explained to me what this show was about, I’d ask, “Where are the dragons?” Mad Men is a special show, and it will be remembered as a classic a long time from now.

McCann-Erikson is moving Sterling Cooper to their offices. It’s the end of them. The partners are upset. How can they save themselves? When the California office suddenly becomes free, Don has the idea of taking the conflict clients with them, and being a subsidiary of McCann in the west. That idea is shut down almost immediately. It’s spun as a golden opportunity for all of them, except Joan. Her opportunity is conspicuously absent.

Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) accompanies Trudy (Alison Brie) to speak to the headmaster of a school Tammy was rejected from. He ends up punching the guy, because he had a weird ancestral reason. It also seems Trudy is not liking divorced life anymore than Pete is.

Peggy confides in Stan (Jay R. Ferguson) about giving up her baby for adoption, spurred by a child casting call and a guilty mother.

Don continues to look for Diana the waitress.

The partners tell the office, and they can’t even maintain the facade of happiness. They are ignored – a foreshadowing of things to come?

Mad Men airs Sunday nights at 10pm on AMC.

Video

Next on Mad Men: Episode 711

Don’t miss the next episode of Mad Men, Sun., April 26th at 10/9c.