Review of Marriage of Figaro

Domestic bliss, my ass. Don is miserable. He obviously yearns for the playboy nature of the single life but is shackled within the role of the All American Family. His wife prepares for their daughter's birthday party, inviting the neighbors and their children. Don, prior to this insufferable experience (drinking and drinking as he puts together his daughter's playhouse), was kissing on a female client who wants his firm to help her establish her store as a premiere spot for wealthy clientèle that want to pay substantially for her products which will no doubt push away her current customers which flood the premises due to low bargain prices. Campbell returns to a "Chinamen" with chickens in his office much to the delight of his co-workers. Meanwhile, Campbell puts up a front that marriage is really the bomb while obviously still smitten with Peggy. "Lady Chatterly's Lover" gets passed around between women in the office and while Joan tries to dissuade flippantly Peggy's desire to read it (perhaps a slight against her preconceived "homespun values"), she had it at her disposal. A single mother joins the birthday party (Darby Stanchfield, of Scandal on ABC) and is scrutinized by the other busybody wives seemingly hostile due to her freedom absent domestic servitude and their colorless ideals regarding proper behavior as a woman with a child. Don goes out to get the birthday cake and doesn't return in time, with Stanchfield's Helen offering a freezer cake that Betty appreciates. I swear that Anne Dudek has been in EVERYTHING quality television…her agent is boss. Dudek is a pregnant neighbor with too much time on her hands, with plenty of comments about people spoken to her close buddy, Betty. Betty conceals a great deal and allows her friends to say whatever comes to mind. I wonder when that calm exterior fractures for good? The goofy immaturity of the men in the firm can clearly at times annoy Don, and Campbell's visual congratulatory nature regarding the honeymoon is obviously hogwash. What you see on this show is people living shallow lives and often pretending to be what they are not. Helen seems to be a genuine article, a good mother who is divorced from the same pattern of living the mothers/wives in her neighborhood hold as necessary. Helen is an empathetic figure mainly because she doesn't adhere to falsehood domesticity and instead lives her life openly and honestly much to the chagrin of her peers. Don's misery won't subside as long as he desires to escape his current situation. This episode lets us see that he is under a false identity, and that someone from the war calls him a completely different name. At the beginning, this is brought up and not mentioned again…a detail that is planted in our minds for a later date. Amusingly, the VW bug gets noticed in Playboy as the firm execs can't seem to escape its article while failing to come up with a catchy slogan for a product they seem stuck on how to promote successfully.