Mad Men: From Here To Modernity

Between budget cuts, broken homes, retro-future interior design, AA, and Swedish dating habits on last night’s episode, it’s clear that “old fashioned” is for the birds and “mod” is the cooler way to be.

Old pee-pee pants Freddy is back, and at 16-months dry, he’s turned into a wet blanket. Something tells me that Freddy’s commitment to AA is going to play a role in Don’s rapidly downward spiral into full-blown alcoholism. Either that or his 12-step lifestyle will step on his co-workers toes to the point where they’re annoyed by his teetotalism.

However, despite Freddy’s sobriety and his newly-cleared head, he still is stuck in the past. He has a particular aversion to modernity, like Roger’s new office.

But the future in inevitable and so is the change that it brings, so Freddy is going to have to learn quickly to adapt—particularly when it comes to his notions about women, which actually don’t offend Peggy as a female as much as it does as a young person.

Peggy — the modern, working woman, blazing the trail for more to come — thinks that “old fashioned” is terrible. Probably because “old fashioned” is what held her back. “Old fashioned” is what kept her in the typing pool. “Old fashioned” is what put “what’s expected of me” in front of “what I want.” So when her boyfriend called her “old fashioned” after she refused to sleep with him, she was offended.

Later, Peggy opened up to Freddy about her personal life. He told her to not sleep with her boyfriend if she wanted him to respect her enough to marry her. Knowing that Freddy is “old fashioned,” and knowing that “old fashioned” is the last thing she wants to be, Peggy did the opposite of what he suggested:

As for the future of the ad agency, right now, they are having to fake the “old days” of Christmas parties in order to make it more appealing for a potential client.

And as for Don, well, he managed to get a little ho, ho, ho this season by essentially turning his secretary into a prostitute without her knowledge.