Mad Men: We Married Joan

Well, we all wanted to when she sang a little French song with her little squeezebox – hey, that's what the AMC blog is calling Joan Holloway's gorgeous red-and-pearl accordion. Ooh-la-la indeed.

AMC is offering an exclusive to iPhone users: A behind-the-scenes look at the singing and dancing on Episode 3 of Season 3 of "Mad Men," titled "My Old Kentucky Home."

Perhaps this iPhone exclusive is a foreshadowing. Traditional media, with massive debt and plummeting ad revenues, is perplexed on how to become relevant again. One answer might be to offer subscribers something they can't get anywhere else.


Last week I expressed dismay that Don Draper had misplaced some of his strong-silent-type existential allure. I suggested that perhaps Joan Holloway could take up where Don Draper left off, as sort of a "brickhouse Ayn Rand."

Forget it. No one as adorable as Joan would or should ever be cast into the abyss of nothingness.

So, Mr. Draper, the ball has bounced back into your court. Where's the Don Draper who – in his own words – sleeps just fine every night on a bed of money? Where's the man who faces the weight of uncertainty and rootlessness of modern life with a pensive but evocative face? Or even, at times, muted pleasure?

In other "Mad Men" news, Episode 3 features secretary-turned-copywriter Peggy Olson discovering marijuana, but I am not persuaded. I suspect someone as prudent as Peggy would have watched and waited.

My college freshman year I noticed that no one on pot became the hysterical lunatic I'd expected. They smiled more than usual, made more eye contact than usual and laughed more than usual. It was then that I concluded perhaps I'd been misinformed by my high-school principal.

Darling Joan aside, Episode 3 was also noteworthy for addressing ethnicity, as my colleague Mary Curtis discussed in Carla, Roger and Racial Stirrings on 'Mad Men.' And gender, as my colleague Bonnie Goldstein pointed out in Peggy Olson: 'My Name is on the Door.'

I have no idea why Pete Campbell and his wife would be so adept at dancing the Charleston. They were a hoot to watch, but I guess I'll have to grab my husband's iPhone to find out why 1963 newlyweds would even know how to do the Charleston, much less do it so well.

Let's hope this dazzling display of the jazz-era dancing doesn't mean the art directors are now in complete control of "Mad Men." But, to be honest, even if the they are, I remain enslaved. See you next week.