It is better than its predecessor, "The Rejected," but not by a whole lot. It just barely earned eight stars as far as I'm concerned, and it didn't seem up to "Mad Men" standards.
The episode features a number of events regarding Sally, played quite well by Kiernan Shipka. It's also the first episode in a while that we've been January Jones (Betty). The show pulls off something quite well, and that is that we ARE either Betty or Don, depending on what makes the story flow. We tend to know what they know and feel what they feel. This is further illustrated as us specifically not seeing Sally's conversation with the psychiatrist, as well as making us feel like Don in the sense that as soon as we see Betty, it's because there's a problem.
This installment is not without humor, as well. Some of Roger's crude and offensive remarks, as little as I'd like to admit it, prove very funny, and of course Sally's "I know that the man pees inside the woman" is the funniest line from a drama I've heard in a long time.
The other event taking place here is Roger Sterling's fight with the Japanese. What was good about this is that the writers have mentioned this a bit before. It's never been so forward, but they brought it up once or twice, so we wouldn't be completely caught off guard here. However, I thought the scenes with the Japanese clients was a bit strange. Half of the time, they spoke through the translator, the other half they spoke in broken English. Pick one. I did like Roger's apology and found it interesting how Bert treats him like a child. And the last shot of the closing door, a subtle homage to "The Godfather," a movie which is clearly a very heavy influence on the show, did not go unnoticed.
But, even with all that being said, the rest of the scenes in the episode seem to be either filler, unimportant, or repeating the same points. It's rather lackluster.
Frankly, the best part of this episode is the title.
The episode features a number of events regarding Sally, played quite well by Kiernan Shipka. It's also the first episode in a while that we've been January Jones (Betty). The show pulls off something quite well, and that is that we ARE either Betty or Don, depending on what makes the story flow. We tend to know what they know and feel what they feel. This is further illustrated as us specifically not seeing Sally's conversation with the psychiatrist, as well as making us feel like Don in the sense that as soon as we see Betty, it's because there's a problem.
This installment is not without humor, as well. Some of Roger's crude and offensive remarks, as little as I'd like to admit it, prove very funny, and of course Sally's "I know that the man pees inside the woman" is the funniest line from a drama I've heard in a long time.
The other event taking place here is Roger Sterling's fight with the Japanese. What was good about this is that the writers have mentioned this a bit before. It's never been so forward, but they brought it up once or twice, so we wouldn't be completely caught off guard here. However, I thought the scenes with the Japanese clients was a bit strange. Half of the time, they spoke through the translator, the other half they spoke in broken English. Pick one. I did like Roger's apology and found it interesting how Bert treats him like a child. And the last shot of the closing door, a subtle homage to "The Godfather," a movie which is clearly a very heavy influence on the show, did not go unnoticed.
But, even with all that being said, the rest of the scenes in the episode seem to be either filler, unimportant, or repeating the same points. It's rather lackluster.
Frankly, the best part of this episode is the title.