|
Begrudgingly, the Unbound Edition Players lumber across the stage to present “Three Sundays.” That clunking sound you just heard is the prop guy bringing in an artificial respirator to try to breathe some life into this corpse.
(Curtain up)
Scene: Sunday Mass at Peggy’s church
Priest: Sex is bad. Eeeevil, I say. People who have sex will burn for all eternity!
Peggy: Um. I’m suddenly not feeling very well.
Peggy’s sister: That’s because you’re hung over. I hate you for having a life while I sit home raising your kid.
Peggy: Kid? I have no idea what you’re talking about.
(Peggy walks out into the church vestibule and runs into an attractive young priest)
Father Gill: Hidey. I’m visiting your parish for a while so I can try to please my holiest father.
Peggy: Oh. God and I aren’t so much on good terms these days.
Father Gill: Who? Oh, no. I meant my actual father. Tom Hanks. I’m making this cameo appearance to try to get some artistic credibility.
Peggy: Dude. I saw the previews for your new “House Bunny” movie. What were you thinking?
Father Gill: I still say it’s better than “Joe Versus the Volcano.” Speaking of noxious, hot vapor, your bitchy sister invited me over for dinner tonight.
Scene: Morning at the Draper house. Don is making the moves on Betty in the bedroom.
Don: We’re the picture of marital bliss, yessiree. No dysfunction in these parts.
Betty: Pant pant.
Sally and Bobby: Hidey!
Don: Get out! We’re, um, sleeping.
Betty: You’re both, what, under six? Go downstairs and make yourselves breakfast. Preferably with electrical equipment that gets really, really hot. What could possibly go wrong?
Scene: Later at Peggy’s sister’s house. Father Gill has arrived for dinner.
Peggy’s mom: Would you honor us and say grace?
Father Gill: Um, ok. Thanks for the food, these people and their home. Or something. Am I a legitimate priest? Don’t I seem shady?
Peggy’s mom: That was beautiful. Are you going to say grace now?
Father Gill: Hag.
Peggy’s sister: Peggy works in Manhattan.
Peggy’s mom: She writes copy about feminine products.
Father Gill: Ewww. Look at the time.
Peggy: I should get going.
Father Gill: Sweet. Where to? I’ll give you a lift.
Audience: Oooh! This is getting so “Thorn Birds!”
(Later in Father Gill’s car)
Father Gill: I want to ask you about something and it’s personal.
Audience: Thorn Birds! Thorn Birds! Where’s the sandy beach?
Father Gill: I have to give a big sermon on Palm Sunday. Can I run it by you? Because apparently this entire parish consists of morons and you’re the only one who knows public speaking.
Audience: Boo. We’re let down.
Peggy: I find that if I’m prepared and have confidence in what I’m selling, that kills the butterflies. Oh, and pick someone in the audience and stare at them like a stalker.
Scene: Monday at a restaurant. Kenny and Pete are entertaining a client, Marty Hasselback.
Pete: Woo-hoo! I’m sassy and perky. I sure bounced back quickly from that whole “father died in a plane crash and left us all despondent” thing.
Kenny: Oh, good. Here’s Vicki the Whore. We got her for you, Marty, because it’s completely appropriate for us ad agency types to procure prostitutes for our clients as bribes. 1962 is so entirely awesome.
Vicki: I’ve heard so much about you, Marty. But Kenny, you didn’t tell me about his wonderful bald head. I’m going to say “head” as many times as I can in this scene.
Roger: Fancy seeing you all here.
Pete: This is Marty Hasselback from Gorton’s.
Vicki. Head. I mean, hidey. I’m Marty’s wife.
Roger: Lucky you.
Vicki: We were just discussing he male head.
Roger. How long have you been married?
Vicki: Five years.
Roger: OK. See you around.
Vicki: Head.
Scene: Don’s office at Sterling Cooper. Bobbie Barrett strolls in.
Bobbie: Hey, Don. Remember last week when you sexually assaulted and threatened me at Lutece? I obviously don’t.
Don: Cool. Why are you here?
Bobbie: I have an idea for a new show. It’s like Candid Camera, only hosted by Jimmy. It’s called “Grin and Barrett.” Get it? Damn, I’m a clever little minx.
Don: It’s cute.
(Bobbie walks over and locks the door. She proceeds to climb all over Don.)
Don: I have work to finish.
Bobbie: Bullshit. (drops jacket to the floor in front of Don)
Bobbie’s jacket: Oh God. This can’t be good.
Vicki: H…
Don and Bobbie: Shut it.
Scene: That evening at the Draper house
Betty: Hey. Bobby broke the record player and said he didn’t do it. He lied to my face. Can you believe it?
Don: I’m sorry. Did you say something? I was just thinking about all of my dalliances that you don’t know about.
Betty: Go deal with it.
Don: OK. (walks upstairs to Bobby’s room) Mommy says you broke the hi-fi. I believe her. Don’t do it again.
Betty: That’s it? How will he ever learn right from wrong unless you cause serious pain to the child? You’re such a pansy.
Pancake griddle: Oh, just you wait, Betty. I got your back.
Scene: Palm Sunday morning at the Draper house. Don’s making pancakes for the kids.
Phone: Ring ring.
Pancake griddle: Psst! Bobby! Over here!
Don: Hello.
Duck (on phone): American Airlines moved the presentation up. Everyone’s here at the office. Haul it in.
Pancake griddle: Look at this tasty raw pancake batter, Bobby. Mmmm. Tasty, tasty batter.
Bobby’s jaw: Unhinge. Sizzle sizzle.
Bobby: Ouch!
Pancake griddle: Ha! That’ll learn ya something about dishonesty, boy!
Don: I have to go to the office.
Betty: It's Sunday. And our lobotomized kid has to go to the ER. Fine, take Sally with you.
Scene: Peggy’s sister’s house
Father Gill: Hey. I can’t stay. Someone’s dying or something. Where’s Peggy?
Peggy’s mother: She’s, um, sick. Why I’m saying that, I don’t know. Is it that big a deal that she’s working on Sunday? Anyhoo, you rocked the house with your sermon.
Father Gill: It was all Peggy’s doing. Golly, she’s swell. She helped me write it.
Peggy’s sister: She did? Bitch. Must…destroy…Peggy.
Scene: The conference room at Sterling Cooper
Pete: Look at me, all jaunty in my tennis outfit.
Duck: Who’s that dork in the bow tie?
Harry: Oh, hey. I’m the head of television. I’m irrelevant for this meeting.
Duck: Let’s be indecisive and show all three campaigns.
Don: Creative team, haul ass to my office, stat.
(a few minutes later)
Don: Duck’s a tool. We’re only presenting one idea. Show me something.
Sal: Here are some boards. We’re going to show really phallic planes going up and down. Going up, and then coming in for a landing. Oooh yes. Up! Down! Faster! Faster!
Don: Christ.
Scene: The room of a fancy pants hotel. Roger opens the door and Vicki the Whore walks in.
Roger: I haven’t done this since I was in the navy.
Vicki: The prices may have changed, but the menu is the same.
Roger: I’m going to try to kiss you now. Mwah.
Vicki: The menu hasn’t changed.
Roger: Oh, I see how it is. You’re going to get all “Pretty Woman” on me about smooching. Fine, whatever. Here, I’ll throw a bunch of money at you and your horse teeth.
Scene: Back at the office
Sally: I’m young and precocious. I just talked to Joan about boobs. Let’s have an awkward conversation that shows that I'm wise and troubled beyond my years. So, is this your maid here in the picture?
Paul: No, that’s my girlfriend.
Sally: Do you kiss her?
Paul: Sometimes.
Sally: Do you lay on top of her?
Paul: Um. Hey, why don’t you go find your dad? Or, better yet, help yourself to some of the free booze we have in every office.
Don: This is the usual part of the show where I strut out and have all of the answers for the big campaign we’re developing. Are you all ready?
Staff: Oh great. Here he goes again, gunning for another Golden Globe.
Don: American Airlines is not about the past anymore. It’s about going to the moon. Let’s pretend we know what 1963 will look like. Oh, and don’t mention the crash.
Pete: Crap. I can’t milk my dead old man to further my career?
Scene: Friday morning. Everyone’s in a tizzy preparing the conference room for the big presentation.
Duck: Um, hey. Shel was fired by American Airlines this morning.
All of the Air in the Room: Suck.
Scene: Confessional at the church
Peggy’s sister: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I stole some coins from the Laundromat. I took the lord’s name in vain three times. And I hate my sister. She’s a whore who seduced a married man and had his baby. See, she’s not as swell as you thought, is she, Father McHottie?
Father Gill: It’s not your place to judge, bitch. Say a bunch of Hail Marys and Our Fathers and try to forgive your sister.
Peggy’s sister: Whatever. Tell your father I still haven’t forgiven him for “The Bonfire of the Vanities.”
Scene: Don’s office
Don: That whole American Airlines thing blew big time. Duck should be fired.
Roger: Old wife, um, I mean business, is just old business. Don’t you love the chase? When it does work out, it’s like that first cigarette. Your heart pounds, your knees go weak, you’re all splayed out wearing the new business’ ass as a hat.
Don: Tell me about it. You should have seen me getting it on with the new Jimmy Barrett business in my office earlier.
Scene: The Draper house later that night. Don comes into the kitchen.
Betty: How did it go? Bobby, stop playing with that robot.
Don: It didn’t.
(Bobby somehow loses control of the robot and makes Sally’s drink spill over)
Betty: Do something!
(Don grabs the robot and throws it across the room)
Betty: You don’t do anything around here!
Don: Shut it. You have a house and clothes and you get to ride your damn horse around all day while I cheat on you at the office. What more could a woman possibly want? I could totally put you through this window right now.
Betty: Push!
Don: Oh yeah? PUSH!
Betty: How are you going to raise these kids? Come on, won’t it be great to beat them once in a while?
Don: My dad used to beat the hell out of me. All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him.
Robot: Oh, just you wait, mister. Once I get my arms put back on, you are SO going to rue this day.
Pancake Griddle: I got your back, buddy.
Scene: Church after Easter service. Peggy is surrounded by little kids, including her love child with Pete, at an Easter egg hunt.
Peggy: Cool sermon.
Father Gill. Thanks. (Hands her an egg.) For the little one.
Peggy: Oh crap. He knows. Now he’ll never be my Richard Chamberlain. Before he turned gay.
Egg: Ha! He totally knows about your seedy past. Don’t you have…egg on your face? Did you get that? Don’t I just “crack” you up? Yolk yolk!
(curtain down)
Yet another yawnfest this week, at least for me. Why in the hell would Bobbie Barrett keep chasing Don after what the French dinner napkin experienced last week? The highlight of the episode had to be Pete’s Arthur Ashe getup. But otherwise, bluh. Or was it genius and I was too busy eating chocolate pecan pie to notice?
And here’s a preview of this week’s episode, “The New Girl.” Don can’t manage to get away from Bobbie, and Joan’s pissy about the competition for best boobs in the office.
For more posts by Kristin Ament, including Attention Deficit Theater recaps of all "Mad Men" episodes, click here.
And for even more sweet Mad Men loving, visit our friends over at Basket of Kisses.
 |
